From: aa302@Freenet.carleton.ca (Russell McOrmond)
Subject: Re: Welmat
Reply-To: aa302@Freenet.carleton.ca (Russell McOrmond)
Organization: The National Capital Freenet
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1992 01:15:39 GMT


In a previous article, Q-Bert@qube.OCUnix.On.Ca (Q-Bert) says:
>The person to talk to is Russel McOrmond, and he just left for the
>Christmas holidays. Bummer.

Not yet.  Gone from the 22'nd to the 4'th.  Hopefully anyone who sends
email in that time won't mind the wait.

>to pay directly for the transmission....
>
>Send him an EMail at rwm@atronx.ocunix.on.ca

 And it is because of the above that I am doing this followup.  Please
don't use the above address unless you get a bounce to my
'aa302@freenet.carleton.ca' account.

  Since I have gotten quite a few Email messages (On Fidonet, Freenet
and OCUnix) I think it might be appropriate to answer some of the most
frequent questions:

  Firstly, the latest public release is Welmat 0.47.14, and it is
available on amiga.physik as 'WLMT4714.lzh' and 'WelmatTools47.lzh'.
There is a new program that is in development called 'WPL' which
is a derivative of Welmat.  Here is the introduction section of
a document called 'WPL.readme' which is file requestable (Fidonet)
from my site fidonet#1:163/139.0.  WPL is not yet released to
the public, but anyone who is a regular memeber of the public
support conference 'WELMAT' is able to request and become a beta
tester of this new language.


               Welmat Programming Language - WPL
               ---------------------------------

  WPL is the new interpreted language for writing network mailers and
other telecomunications utilities.  The language is designed to be very
extendable by third party developers, and makes use of a grouping of
shared libraries with a standardized interface.

  The 'application' previously called 'Welmat' and this language have
a few things in common.  Firstly, the origional 'Welmat' code was used as a
shell during the development of this language so that things could be
upgraded in stages. At this point the majority of the code has been 
re-written, and most of what used to be called 'WELMAT' is now housed in
an XPR library called 'xprfts.library' that is an optional external
transfer protocol.  Secondly, the development philosophy and distribution
licence for the program called 'WELMAT' is being kept.  This new language
is licenced under the GNU public licence and is aimed at providing very
powerfull and configurable tools to allow the users to determine their
own personal networking environments.   Thirdly, the name 'WELMAT'
is being kept as the name of the support conference, it is the 'W' in 'WPL',
and there is a hope that a 'WCompile' program to make use of the old 
V0 Welmat config files will be written.  At last, many of the origional 
Welmat enthusiests are getting involved with the development, beta testing 
and support of this new language and related tools.

  The similarities between WPL and the application called WELMAT pretty much
end there.  This new language is just that : A LANGUAGE.  With this language
comes many different 'levels' of users ranging from people who would need
to be 'C' and Assembly programmers, to people who might not even know how
to run a CLI command:

  a) WPI (Welmat Programmers Interface) developers - People who would make 
use of 'wpl.library', 'xferq.library' and other tools common to the 
WPL envirionment in language extension libraries, xferq supporting file 
request handlers, tosser/scanners, etc.

  b) WPL developers - People who write mailers, BBS's, terminal packages or
other applications in the new WPL language.  These people could also be 
the authors of programs such as WCompile, WelmatPrefs, etc which would in 
one way or another generate a 'WPL script' that would contain the 
functionality of the 'application'.  These developers might also include
the various REXX and FPL developers who would be making use of the various
language gateways to these telecomunications tools.

  c) While not really 'WPL specific', any author working on an XPR 
supporting file transfer protocol, expecially those that are working on 
libraries that might conform to the future 'XPR 3.0' proposals 
would be able to make use of WPL as their host, and any WPL developers would 
be able to make use of these file transport protocols in their applications.
Anyone interested in this level of development are strongly encouraged
to get connected to the XPR mailing list for future XPR development
discussion (More information provided in the 'XPR' section of this readme.

  d) User level - This would constitute the majority of people using WPL
based systems.  These people would need no knowledge of any tools other
than the programs that will be generating the 'WPL scripts' that will be
their mailer.  People in this group could be using mailers that are
configured much like the old Welmat V0 config files, or with newer systems
such as the proposed WelmatPrefs program (A program that will make setting
up a network mailer as simple as setting up ones screen preferences).

  *NOTE*:  WPL is an internal language that will likely be used by less than
10% of the users that will be making use of the new environment.  Unless you
are an extreme power user, it is reccomended that you wait to do any mailer 
beta testing until some of the configuration editors are being written.  
Learing WPL,WPI,etc is not required, nor even reccomended for the majority 
of users!!!


  It is my hope that in the future the various 'user levels' will be able
to have their own support people.  I myself would love to be able to 
write networking tools that I would then support to people at the first
and second level.   These people in turn would write 'user applications' that
they would support to the actual users as they would be more familiar with
configuration issues with their tools than anyone else.  This would allow
for much more people to be involved, and for much better user support for
all the various types of users that exist.   One of the problems, for instance,
with the current 'WELMAT' support conference is that people at the
'User Level' are almost shut out by the people at the 'WPL developer'
level.  For this reason I am in the process of setting up an alternate
WELMAT-DEV support conference so that the 'WELMAT' conference will be left
for 'User Level' support of the various applications that will emerge.

[Addendum: It should also be noted that I am trying to set up a gated
mailing list so that 'WELMAT' and 'WELMAT-DEV' will be available to
email users on the internet as well]
-- 
 Russell McOrmond, Ottawa Ontario, Canada    | Standard Disclaimer applies.
 Freenet: aa302@freenet.carleton.ca (Faster) | Current WELMAT 'keeper of
 Home: rwm@Atronx.OCUnix.On.Ca,  1:163/109   | sources.
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.datacomm