Zynaptic Reaction Beta 3 Is Here
Posted : 09-05-2012
The latest beta release of the Reaction asynchronous programming framework is now available for download. It's had quite an overhaul, but we think the changes are worthwhile.
When we originally developed the Reaction asynchronous programming framework it was strongly influenced by the core functionality of the Twisted programming framework for Python. This involved carrying over a number of Pythonesque programming idioms which were not always a good fit for the Java platform. The new beta release of the Reaction framework seeks to address these issues with a modified design which is a closer fit for conventional Java programming.
The main problem with previous releases of the Reaction framework came from our attempt to retain a Python-style, dynamically typed approach to managing callback data. Ultimately, this led to the undesired maintenance and documentation overhead of having to track valid callback data types from 'outside' the language syntax. The latest release of the Reaction framework addresses this issue by making extensive use of Java generics. The introduction of generic typing eliminates the need to use run-time dynamic casting for callback data, and consequently improves the reliability and maintainability of Reaction based applications.
The second major change with this release is that the Reaction asynchronous programming framework is now licensed under the General Public License version 2 with classpath exception. The terms of the classpath exception are identical to those used in the context of the OpenJDK project.
The sourcecode and documentation for the new beta release of the Reaction framework may be found on the Reaction section of this website.