Frequently asked Questions about the status of Alexandra

We had experimental versions of 0.8 to evaluate certain ideas but it was always planned that the next version of Alexandra (ie. 0.9) would be a complete rewrite; reusing experience but hardly any code! This is necessary because the current architecture is anything but perfect and makes it virtually impossible to implement more advanced features like threading (of articles) and communication with the server in a background thread. Our original plan was that 0.9 would be a more or less experimental first version of the new Alexandra running under NEXTSTEP 3.x and little foundation but since Constantin and I had hardly any time in the last couple of month we changed our plans. Of course we are developing for OpenStep now and since we still do not have enough time version 0.9 will most likely be a reader only; no posting capabilities. We've most of the core parts finished, ie. the model classes, internet message decoding (including full MIME compliance), network communication layer and view classes with user defined styles. There's still a lot to do though but we think that we can finish 0.9 within the next six month.

We know that this is a long time, but we don't want to make any comprimises and deliver a newreader that can be considered state-of-the-art and leaves room for future enhancements (This does not mean that the new Alexandra will have all features that other newsreaders have. As with the 0.8 versions we will not provide any extra support for situations where no local NNTP-server is available.)

Do I understand correctly that the new Alexandra will not have posting capabilities?

The new Alexandra will, of course, eventually have posting capabilities. It is just possible that we release a preliminary version without so that we can get feedback as soon as possible. The design we've made does include posting and most classes/methods exist already, they're just emtpy so far...

Do I understand correctly that the new Alexandra not be available for NEXTSTEP 3.3 (which includes the OpenStep compatible FoundationKit)?

Yes, the new Alexandra will not be available for NEXTSTEP 3.x! The FoundatationKit that is available for NEXTSTEP 3.x is just a subset of the full FoundationKit of OpenStep. Even NeXT engineers call it 'little foundation.' Furthermore, the AppKit has had some fundamental changes and if we would develop for NEXTSTEP and convert to OpenStep later we would sacrifice a lot of capabilities, loose some elegance in design and, even worse, need more time. (I think that it is obvious that Alexandra should run under OpenStep at some point in time, especially in the light of the FSF's plan to use GNUStep as the primary windowing system for the Hurd and, of course, Apple's Rhapsody which supposedly will be OpenStep compliant as well.)

Is Alexandra really OpenStep compliant or does it just run under OPENSTEP for Mach?

The functionality offered by OpenStep (the standard not NeXT's implementation of the same!) doesn't cover everything we need to implement Alexandra. There are, for example, no means to open a socket or to work with formatted text in an efficient way. We try our best to encapsulate the dependencies on OPENSTEP for Mach and keep them as little as possible. This should make "porting" Alexandra to OPENSTEP for NT/Solaris, GNUStep and Rhapsody fairly easy.