FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Deep Sky Technologies, Inc., Announces Release of BASh v1.6.0

Vero Beach, FL – Tuesday, September 4th, 2001: Deep Sky Technologies, Inc.,
today announced the release of BASh v1.6.0 for Macintosh and Windows. BASh
is a 4th Dimension component which provides extensive utility functionality
for 4D programmers, including a dynamic stack space module for reusing
variable space, encoding and cryptography routines, and much, much more.

BASh is the first 4D component publicly available after the release of 4D
v6.7.0 by 4D, Inc., and 4D SA. And, in keeping with the tradition of
offering high quality and services, Deep Sky Technologies, Inc., has made
the BASh component available for free to the developer community.

BASh v1.6.0 contains 29 new methods. All total, the BASh component now
consists of 293 methods across 25 modules of code. The manual is over 375
pages long and describes every single method call in detail. As well, this
release of the BASh component includes the documentation module, z_Library,
as a separate 4D Insider library.

Developers Everywhere are Talking

“If you are using 4D 6.7.x, get a copy of the BASh component from DeepSky.
Once you read through the documentation, you’ll realize how much time it
will save you-the string, date/time and array handling methods are worth
the download time in themselves. I haven’t gotten into other things yet,
but…”

– Bradley S. Criss
bscriss@home.com, 20010808

“4D should put BASh in the box with 4D. This free component provides dozens
of utility routines every 4D programmer is likely to need. I particularly
appreciate that many of the most common, and tedious, conversion tasks are
handled so gracefully. The dynamic variable assignment module is worth the
price of the component alone! This code eliminates one of the 4D languages
limits while treading lightly on RAM. Thanks to Deep Sky for their
generosity in writing and upgrading this great tool. I’ve never gotten a
250 page manual with a free developer tool before.”

– David Adams, Island Data Management
Kailua, HI
dpadams@island-data.com, 20010215

“… the DSS part looks real cool and there’s more than that in [BASh]
which saves me from trying to wrap up my own versions of similar nature
nicely…”

– Mark Mitchenall, Mitchenall.COM
London, England
mark@mitchenall.com, 20001211

“I have been using the DSS module for some time now. It’s rock solid code.
The ability to use the DSS module to implement a type of ‘pointer to local
variable’, makes programming 4D more intuitive and flexible. Combine DSS
with ObjectTools and you have a very powerful solution to handle all those
AreaList Pro objects in your database. And now it’s bundled with a bunch of
other useful stuff. So why not do yourself a favour, install BASh. You’ll
thank yourself for it, I guarantee it.”

– Phillip Hall, Sapphire Software Pty. Limited
Redfern, New South Wales, Australia
phillip@sapphire.com.au, 20001123

“Even if you only use the variable management system (DSS), this component
will allow you to structure your code as never before. This and the other
modules provided in BASh will provide even experienced developers with
features that they would have been using for years if only they had been
able to invest their time in the coding effort. Most of us have not.”

– John Macrae, C4i Limited
Forncett St. Peter, Norwich, England
jmacrae@c4i.com, 20001127

Features in the BASh component

The BASh component consists of many different modules of methods which
provide extensive utility services in 4th Dimension applications. The
list of modules currently available in the BASh component is:

# ARR – Array sizing, management, and manipulation methods;
# BLOB – BLOB management and manipulation methods;
CODEC – encoding and decoding support for common formats;
CONV – conversion methods to handle data and type conversions;
# CRYPT – encryption and decryption routines;
DATE – provides basic date manipulation routines;
DSS – Dynamic Stack Space; reusable variable management system;
DTS – Date-Time Stamps; generation and manipulation methods;
ENV – environmental information (program, OS, CPU, etc.);
# FILE – path and file name utilities;
INIT – module and component initialization;
* INT – interruption manager;
NULL – Variable clearing and initialization methods;
NVP – named value pair utilities and management;
# PROS – process information accessors;
PTEXT – parameter text replacement routines;
RES – resource management and utility methods;
SEM – Semaphore management methods;
SERNO – serial number generation and confirmation methods;
# STR – string manipulation, formatting, and filtering methods;
TIME – Time manipulation methods;
TYPE – Variable type comparison methods;
URL – URL creation and extraction routines;
VAR – Variable utility methods;
WORD – manipulators for non-native four-byte values.

* – new to the latest release of BASh
# – expanded within the latest release of BASh

New Features in v1.6.0

Version 1.6.0 of the BASh component contains 29 new methods. As well,
there is a whole new module of code available in this release, INT,
the Interruption manager. Additions have been made to the ARR, BLOB,
CRYPT, FILE, PROS, and STR modules.

Many bug fixes have been included in this version, especially for
double byte language installations of 4D and BASh (a great deal of
thanks to Ken Ishimoto of Ken’s Room for help on this).

The PROS module has been filled out considerably in this release. A
complete process manager is now included with BASh to considerably
ease the development of multiprocess 4D applications.

Additions to the ARR, BLOB, and STR modules add additional find,
replace, parse, stripping functionality. New methods in the FILE
module ease path creation problems and alias/shortcut resolution
issues within 4D.

Version 1.6.0 also includes a new Affix BASh document for placement in
the 4DX folder. The Affix BASh document contains all of the data and
resources necessary for the BASh component to operate seemlessly in
all 4D projects.

4D Pack, the plugin available from 4D, Inc., and 4D SA, is now a part
of the BASh component. Macintosh and Windows versions of 4D Pack
v6.7.1 have been included with the BASh component archive for ease of
installation into all 4D projects.

All of the new methods within the BASh v1.6.0 release are readily
upgradeable for current users of BASh. There are no changes required
in existing code to begin using the new version of BASh.

Pricing and Availability

The BASh component is officially released as peepware. For those
unfamiliar with peepware, it is similar to postcardware except that
Marshmallow Peeps (more information about Marshmallow Peeps available at
http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/ ) are requested from those developers
that find the BASh component to be useful in their 4th Dimension
projects.

The BASh component can be downloaded by following the Downloads link on
the Deep Sky Technologies, Inc., web site, located at:

http://www.deepskytech.com/

The BASh component can also be found by following the Freeware link on
the 4D Zine web site and searching for “BASh”. The 4D Zine web site can
be found at:

http://www.4dzine.com/

About Deep Sky Technologies, Inc.

Based in Vero Beach, Florida, Deep Sky Technologies, Inc., provides
software development, consulting, hosting, and colocation services.
Founded in 1997, Deep Sky Technologies, Inc., develops and supports a
wide variety of software development tools and services to aid in the
creation of custom applications and web sites for the Macintosh and
Windows platform. For more information, please visit our web site at
http://www.deepskytech.com/ .

For more information contact:

Steven G. Willis
President, Deep Sky Technologies, Inc.
sgwillis@deepskytech.com
http://www.deepskytech.com/
(561) 794-9494

You can also join the Deep Sky Technologies, Inc., announcement
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http://www.deepskytech.com/mailinglist_signup.html