Alpha Backend

[Marc Stiegler <marcs>]

As Mr. Hill has announced, we now have an Alpha version of the 
Xanadu backend. Some people may be asking, what exactly does 
this mean?

To quote from the PERT chart, Alpha Backend means:

Data stored on disk
Documents & Links Layer Semantics
Real basic scheduling
Slow leaking memory
No ent (guaranteed low speed access)
No sensors
No permissions
No archiving

Slow leaking memory deserves a moment's description. "Slowness" 
is muchly in the eye of the beholder. This first Alpha still 
soaks up memory like a battleship with torpedo holes. However, 
Bogus soaked up memory like a battleship with a hull made of 
chicken wire.

Alpha is just good enough so that a frontend developer could 
sink his teeth into the thing without hitting bone. There are 
surely terrible bugs lurking in there; the documents & links 
layer will need to be expanded, and probably modified in significant 
ways. 

But you can test frontends easily with Alpha, because unlike 
Bogus it will store your test data to disk. And writing frontend 
code for Alpha is easier, because the doc & links tools do so 
much more of the work for you than Bogus could do. And there's 
a real chance that code written and tested with Alpha will still 
work with shrinkwrap. 

Enough of the caveats; let's move on to the cigars. 

Cigars, you say? Yes, cigars! In honor of this momentous occasion, 
I have designed a cigar, customized just for a bunch of nonsmokers 
like us: I do hereby present to you, the reader, your personal 
cigar:


         -------------------------------------------------
       /                                                  \
      /           Xanadian                                 |
     |              Cigar                                  |
      \                                                    |
       \                                                  /
         -------------------------------------------------

These Xanadian cigars have a rich flavor (i.e., they are tasteless).

They have a delicate aroma (i.e., they are odorless).

They last a very long time (i.e., they last as long as the magnetic 
media upon which they are stored).

Mmmmm! Aaaah! Magnificence!


--marcs