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BRL 2.1.12: Faster startup; e-mail sending functionality added
- To: kawa at sourceware dot cygnus dot com, lispweb at read-bean dot com
- Subject: BRL 2.1.12: Faster startup; e-mail sending functionality added
- From: brlewis at alum dot mit dot edu
- Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2000 11:41:38 -0400
BRL 2.1.12
Startup time has been substantially improved with this release.
This release includes the brl-smtp-sender procedure, which facilitates
sending mail through an SMTP server.
A bug is fixed that translated CRLF to CR in BRL pages.
BRL INTRODUCTION
http://brl.sourceforge.net/
BRL is a language designed for server-side WWW-based applications,
particularly database applications. Its facility for generating output
from databases makes it a @emph{report} language. It hides powerful
semantics behind a simple syntax, resulting in code that is easy to
write, read and maintain. This makes it a @emph{beautiful} language.
Thus its name, BRL, the @emph{Beautiful Report Language}.
BRL programs are very much like web pages. One simply puts a BRL file
on a HTTP server and calls up the appropriate URL In a web browser. The
first time the page is loaded it is compiled, and the same compiled
program is used for subsequent page loads until the underlying BRL file
is modified.
There are other systems besides BRL that work in a similar manner, but
they usually require learning a programming language that is unique to
that system (e.g. PHP, CFML), or a language that is more cumbersome than
necessary (e.g. Java/JSP) for the simple programming usually demanded in
HTML pages. BRL uses Scheme, a language taught in hundreds of
universities, colleges and secondary schools worldwide.
Scheme uses an extremely uncomplicated syntax that makes simple code
look simple. It is popular for teaching Computer Science (CS) because
instructors can spend a short time teaching the language itself, leaving
more time to teach CS principles. This has given Scheme a reputation
for being a difficult language because it is usually associated with
advanced concepts. However, those advanced concepts are not necessary
for writing applications using BRL.
BRL is suitable not just for HTML, but for any markup language. A
combination of BRL and pdflatex can be used to dynamically generate PDF
files.
BRL uses a database-neutral SQL interface, borrowed from Java's JDBC.
The current implementation of BRL is a Java Servlet, allowing
integration with all the most popular HTTP servers. All major operating
system / database / HTTP server combinations are suitable for running
BRL.