Re: (1872) CAT -- Clearing the Decks
In reply to #1872 CAT -- Clearing the Decks by Richard Johnson
Cites: #1872
Operating System: HP-UX A.B7.00 U Organization: AT&T-BL, Red Hill System Administration Group (HRSAG) Location: HR 2C119 Phone: [phone removed] Return-receipt: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.3 PL5] *| *| Last week I spouted off about being more interested in working with *| TML sophonts on programs to help the GM, than in directly addressing *| TDR rules-generation stuff. This has sparked some interest, and some *| heat as well as light. This message is a summary of CAT to date, a *| list of existing participants, and (I hope) removal of some floatsam. *| *| Current participants: *| Richard Johnson [email removed] *| Chuck McKnight [email removed] *| Paul Dale grue@batserver. *| Dan Corrin [email removed] *| Add me to that list. I am MORE than willing to participate. *| We, so far, do not actually have a co-ordinator. We usually just copy *| everyone who is participating, as I am with this message. This one I *| felt should be echoed to the TML as well -- sort of a gentle reminder *| to others that if they are interested, they can join in. The feeling of *| most of us is that software is better done quietly in private (and *| wash your hands afterwards. :-) Actually, we're deliberately trying to *| avoid committee-think. *| OK. So maybe the fact that the stuff I'm working on already is written in C++ won't be a problem? How many folks out there have access to a C++ compiler? *| Our primary goal right now was IMHO best expressed by Dan: *| A pc in front of every ref? I could care less. I want a pc in *| front of *me* while I am refing. So do others on the list, and *| I just think that we should get together to program so we don't *| waste our efforts. *| My current project for MSDOS is a program called "refaid." This program would allow a ref to create "people, places, and things" and associate them with other "people, places, and things." Sort of a tailored RDB program. *| Chuck is currently doing MSDOS ports of existing software on the TML. *| Dan and Paul are working on a Deck Plan generator, and I'm just trying *| to collect everything so I can see what programs I want to port to *| what machines. My eventual goal is to have a bunch of programs we can *| put together as a package for distribution, a package that covers most *| of the most-needed stuff. *| This is the one facet that I had not anticipated working on for refaid. *| I think most of us are out for personal fun, not profit. We'll take the *| cash if it falls in our laps, though. *| My plan was to release refaid as a user supported program. Send me $ if you want, but mostly I am writing refaid for the fun of it. *| *| Mark and Dan have been discussing the role of CAT<-->TDR. My view, shaped *| largely by Dan's, is that we're programming for ourselves, and sharing *| information. Right now we're doing MT rules, because they exist. If, *| in the future, someone (or several) want to port the programs to TDR rules, *| we'll help all we can. *| I think that any programs that get written should have both elements of regular mainstream traveller as well as TDR. If released as source code, compiler/preprocessor directives can be added to the code to conditionally include/exclude TDR and or MT. *| *| I'm not sure what Robert Poole is doing, but did understand he was archiving *| software for TDR, or something like that. Robert, if you get your copy, *| please let at least one of us know if and how we should co-ordinate *| efforts. *| I spoke to Robert Poole and I plan to clean up some OT npc generation programs that I wrote and post them with him. I also am going to (I don't know when, I'm real busy right now) port this old code to MSDOS and release it as executables. I also want to write some documentation before releasing it. I'd love to see all this happen. I just hope it doesn't die a crib death..... - - -- - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Peter L. Berghold | AT&T, HRSAG, +1 [phone removed] | |INTERNET: [email removed] | UUCP: {[email removed]|att}!violin!plb | |FAX: [phone removed] | | - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------