[ANNOUNCE] Avacet Application Engine 2.0b2

[DeWitt Clinton <dc...@avacet.com>]

Hi!  I've been quiet for a while on this list, but I still read it
religiously.  I wanted to take a second and share our announcement of
the release of the second beta of the Avacet Application Engine.

   Version 2.0b2 of the Avacet Application Engine is available for 
   download at http://www.avacet.com.

   The Avacet software suite consists of two main parts. The first is
   a language-neutral definition of data and interfaces for exchanging
   data, and the second is a reference implementation of an
   application engine that implements the Avacet framework and client
   libraries. It is suitable for the development of custom enterprise
   applications that require a high degree of scalability,
   reliability, and interoperability.

   The second beta release of the Avacet Application Engine adds a
   language-independent definition format for module interfaces,
   offers XML/RPC over HTTP, new HOWTO documentation geared toward new
   users, and many other enhancements.  This is the last beta before
   version 2.0 of the Avacet Application Engine


Perhaps more so than other application platforms, the Avacet engine is
targeted toward building enterprise quality applications in a Perl and
Apache/mod_perl environment.  The Avacet framework itself is a
language-neutral and open standard for describing data and protocols
for data exchange.  Because the definition is not represented in a
particular programming language, we are able to implement client
libraries in multiple languages (such as Perl) that can share common
middle-tier business logic.

I fundamentally believe that Perl, when written well, can be an
enterprise ready programming language, and that Apache/mod_perl is one
of the best environments (if not the best) for building web
applications.  To that end, we have built a feature rich set of
modules that ease the development of mod_perl applications.  The
Avacet Perl libraries offer a ModPerlApplication base class, as well
as a Service object model for dynamic templates (using HTML::Embperl),
XML based configuration, memory and file system based object caching,
an "exception" model for Perl, among many other features.

I'm announcing this on the mod_perl list because I hope that our code
offers value to engineers doing mod_perl development.  We are using
the Avacet engine and the Perl modules for our own e-commerce
application suite.  By taking advantage of the Avacet framework,
business logic can be shared between custom mod_perl apps, those we
develop at Avacet, and those developed at large by the community.

We have mailing lists set up at the Avacet site, and I invite people
to join us at the avacet-developers list.  I'd be happy to set up an
avacet-perl list if the mod_perl community finds these libraries to be
useful.

You are all invited to check out the second avacet beta at
http://www.avacet.com.  I look forward to hearing your feedback!

Best regards,

-DeWitt