[ANNOUNCEMENT] HttpComponents HttpClient 4.3-alpha1 release

[Oleg Kalnichevski <ol...@apache.org>]

The HttpComponents project is pleased to announce the first ALPHA
release of HttpClient 4.3. The 4.3 branch enhances HttpClient in several
key areas and includes several notable features and improvements:

* Support for Java 7 try-with-resources for resource management
(connection release.)

* Added fluent Builder classes for HttpEntity, HttpRequest and
HttpClient instances. 

* Deprecation of preference and configuration API based on HttpParams
interface in favor of constructor injection and plain configuration
objects.

* Reliance on object immutability instead of access synchronization for
thread safety. Several old classes whose instances can be shared by
multiple request exchanges have been replaced by immutable equivalents. 

* DefaultHttpClient, DecompressingHttpClient, CachingHttpClient and
similar classes are deprecated in favor of builder classes that produce
immutable HttpClient instances. 

* HttpClient builders now dynamically construct a request execution
pipeline tailored specifically to the user configuration by physically
excluding unnecessary protocol components.

* There is now an option to construct a minimal HttpClient
implementation that can only execute basic HTTP message exchanges
without redirects, authentication, state management or proxy support.
This feature might be of particular use in web crawler development. 

* There is now option to avoid strict URI syntax for request URIs by
executing HTTP requests with an explicitly specified target host.
HttpClient will no longer attempt to parse the request URI if it does
not need to extract the target host from it.


The summary of the new HttpClient configuration and preference API can
be found here:

http://wiki.apache.org/HttpComponents/HttpClientConfiguration

We are kindly asking all upstream projects to review API changes and
help us improve the APIs by providing feedback and sharing ideas on
dev@hc.apache.org. 

This release also includes all fixes from the stable 4.2.x release
branch.

Please note that new features included in this release are still
considered experimental and their API may change in the future 4.3 alpha
and beta releases.

-------------------
Download -
<http://hc.apache.org/downloads.cgi>

Release notes -
<http://www.apache.org/dist/httpcomponents/httpclient/RELEASE_NOTES.txt>

HttpComponents site -
<http://hc.apache.org/>

-------------------

About Apache HttpClient

Although the java.net package provides basic functionality for accessing
resources via HTTP, it doesn't provide the full flexibility or
functionality needed by many applications. HttpClient seeks to fill this
void by providing an efficient, up-to-date, and feature-rich package
implementing the client side of the most recent HTTP standards and
recommendations.

Designed for extension while providing robust support for the base HTTP
protocol, HttpClient may be of interest to anyone building HTTP-aware
client applications such as web browsers, web service clients, or
systems that leverage or extend the HTTP protocol for distributed
communication.