njPipes 0.35 Released

[Ed Tomlinson]

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Hi,

I have just released version 0.35 of njPipes, my unoffical port of the CMS/TSO
Pipeline product to netrexx and java.  This release has some new and improved
stages including, LOOKUP, ZONE, PAD, CASEI and PICK.  There have also been
improvements made to APPEND, PREFIX, TCPDATA, TCPCLIENT and JUXTAPOSE.  Bugs
were fixed in BUFFER and SPECS.

For those of you wondering just what njPipes does, here is an introduction I
wrote for the people at www.jars.com, just in case they decide to write a review...

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I started using java two years ago.  The path I have taken is a bit different
from many.  I have used Rexx for years on MainFrames.  When Rexx's creator,
Mike Cowlishaw, announced NetRexx I was very pleased.  Here was an improved
variant of a good and familiar language designed to produce java classes.  The
euphoria lasted until I started writing my first complex program.

Pipes are a tool I use when I have to manipulate data.  They are an effective
way to read and write files.  They are how I parse the output of commands,
selecting and rejecting information.  They are great when collections of data
have to be sorted, merged, colated, or massaged in almost any way.  The data
can come from files, commands, tcpip, sql, arrays, rexx ojbects etc.  Pipes
make programming much simpler - I really missed them.  After exchanging emails
with Pipe's originator, John Hartmann, I realized that if I wanted pipes for
java I was going to have to write the code myself.  Pipes for NetRexx and Java
was born.

What exactly are Pipes?  Imagine Unix pipes on steroids and you have a good idea.
They can be used from the command line or from inside programs.  njPipes can
extract pipes from NetRexx source.  Eventually I will extend this to java too.
There are many filters, also known as stages, that can select and manipulate
objects.  The set of stages supplied with njPipes is constantly growing.  The
information at http://pucc.princeton.edu/~pipeline/#AHelp is being used to guide
development.  When necessary, its easy to contruct customized stages.

Java is not the idea environment for Pipes.  Syncronization and context switching
are not nearly as fast as under CMS, and with java one cannot get as close to the
metal as need to fix this.  However, the current njPipes implementation is fast enough
to be quite useful.  On a Sun E450, with two 300Mhz Sparcs, using native threads, it
can move over 10,000 objects per second.  Due the to nature of complex pipes, the
more cpus you have, the faster njPipes will run them.

The current version of njPipes has a fairly stable core.  The stages work well but
bugs are still being found especially since new stages are popping up from several
sources.  Contributions are always welcome and most have been placed under the GPL.
Once the set of stages is a bit more complete (there are over seventy now) a careful
look will be taken at performance.

In summary, work your way up the learning curve, and you will have mastered a tool
that will make your programming and data manipulations tasks easier.

Melinda Varian's site, http://pucc.princeton.edu/~pipeline, is a good place to start.  
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Please send questions, suggestions, bug reports or comments to: [hidden email]

Luck,

Ed Tomlinson ([hidden email])
Montreal, Canada

To obtain my public key mail me with a subject of: PGP Key
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