CONTACTS 

SUBJECTS
Future Improvements
Design

0604 -
0604 -    ..
0605 - Summary/Objective
0606 -
060601 - Follow up ref SDS 3 0000, ref SDS 2 0000.
060602 -
060604 -  ..
060605 - In order to collaborate on the development of a Windows-based version
060606 - of SDS, a common set of tools and code base is needed to make
060607 - collaboration as painless as possible.
060609 -  ..
060610 - Ideally the toolset will be widely available, powerful, and free.
060611 -
060612 -
060614 -  ..
060615 - Integrated Development Environment
060616 -
060617 - There are 2 main candidates, both written in Java:
060618 -
060619 -    1.  Eclipse. Open Source. It has a plugin system and support for a
060620 -        a wide variety of languages and development methods.
060622 -         ..
060623 -        Neither Gary nor Morris is really familiar with it.
060625 -         ..
060626 -    2.  Netbeans. From Sun Microsystems. Supports a wide variety of
060627 -        languages. Morris is very comfortable with it.
060629 -  ..
060630 - Both IDEs support visual development of GUIs, which can be a real
060631 - pain otherwise.
060632 -
060633 -
060635 -  ..
060636 - Implementation Language
060637 -
060638 - I have covered this before, on 070613 ref SDS 4 0001.
060639 -
060640 - While Delphi and Eiffel are both great languages and might be
060641 - candidates, the reality of needing to collaborate with each other
060642 - and, potentially, with other programmers, there are only 2 viable
060643 - candidates:
060644 -
060645 -    1.  C/C++
060646 -
060647 -        Probably the most-used of the hard-core systems languages.
060648 -        There are many programmers familiar with it.
060650 -         ..
060651 -        Much of the open source work being done is in C/C++. Some
060652 -        projects, such as Perl, have chosen to remain with C rather
060653 -        than going to C++.
060655 -         ..
060656 -        C/C++ is fairly portable, but not inherently so. To support
060657 -        multiple platforms, we would need to use a multi-platform GUI.
060658 -
060659 -           There are several of these now, some free, some commercial.
060661 -         ..
060662 -    2.  Java. Probably more widely used than C++ today. There are
060663 -        free tools and libraries almost without end available.
060665 -         ..
060666 -        There may still be performance issues, but since several major
060667 -        IDEs are written in Java, that shouldn't be an issue.
060669 -  ..
060670 - I know C and have read most of the books on C++ (which I dislike). I
060671 - haven't touched C in years, so learning Java isn't much of an issue.
060673 -  ..
060674 - For either language, the issue is more about learning the support
060675 - libraries than about learning the language.
060676 -
060677 -
060679 -  ..
060680 - Possible Editor Code for a Base
060681 -
060682 - It would be nice if we didn't have to build everything from scratch.
060683 -
060684 - Using an existing code base as a starting point has the potential for
060685 - licensing issues. There is also the possibilty that the underlying
060686 - nature of the editor could interfere with where we want to go with
060687 - SDS.
060688 -
060689 -    1.  MEDX. Morris wrote a version of MEDIT in C to interface with
060690 -        X-Windows on Linux. It has problems, but it is a line-oriented
060691 -        editor with some of the look and feel of MEDIT.
060693 -         ..
060694 -        It isn't very advanced, but that could be a benefit rather
060695 -        than a problem.
060697 -         ..
060698 -    2.  RED. Written in C for DOS. I have never used it, but it is on
060699 -        the C/C++ Users Group CD which I have (somewhere).
060701 -         ..
060702 -    3.  JEdit. Written in Java. The license would need to be looked
060703 -        at.
060704 -
060705 -           http://www.jedit.org
060707 -         ..
060708 -        It took a while to find, but it is GPL, meaning changes have
060709 -        to be resubmitted. We should still be able to get ideas from
060710 -        it.
060711 -
060712 -
060713 -
060714 -
0608 -