SCOUG-Programming Mailing List Archives

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Date:	Thu, 7 Aug 2003 15:00:32 PDT7
From:	Tom Novelli <tcn@mtdata.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
To:	scoug-programming@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Programming: Lynn's project

Content Type: text/plain

> Lynn, I'm looking for some structure in your project and not finding
> any. You state a lofty goal but appear to be seeking it with an
> aimless, random walk.
>
> I know this isn't true because you constantly think in a structured
> fashion. Are you hoping that you won't have to organize the substantial
> material here and that others will properly document your thoughts?
>
> Steven has made some good points and Bob has contributed a suggested
> work priority. Tom has offered some excellent "in the trenches"
> comments.
>
> So which is it? Is this "your" project and you're seeking help, or are
> you simply trying to fire up others in the hope that the project will
> one day be accomplished? What is your road map?
>
> - Peter

First I should mention that I've never used OS/2 or been to California,
and I probably never will, and I'm more of a musician and carpenter than a
programmer these days; I'm only here because Lynn gave a few good "history
lessons" on the TUNES (as in tunes.org) mailing list and I asked him where
I could find more of the same... it's nice to be able to discuss things
freely without wrangling over some project's direction, but mainly I'm
just lurking.

I don't want to discourage him, but... If he wants help, either he'll need
to pay us or offer us a prototype to play with... "actions speak louder
than words", and mailing lists are so time-consuming. With all his
experience, I bet he could crank out a *simplified* prototype in a few
months without any help, and it would be a more cohesive design.

If I were Lynn, I'd forget about source code databases and version
control; I like to know what "print" means without having to look up its
definition. I can't do that with 50 versions of "print" behind the
scenes. And suppose I type "print" - how does the programming interface
know which version I want?

I wrote a Forth-based toy OS (called "Retro" because the like hadn't been
see since the Disco era) and I learned Forth in the process. One annoying
thing about Forth is that you can change the syntax as you go along. To
read it, you have to look back through the source (and any included files,
in proper order) to know what's really going on! So I came to appreciate
Unix and C again; my project has devolved into an incremental refinement
of Linux. Eventually I may write a simplified kernel but I'll be elated
when I can ditch GCC. Meanwhile, I'm actually using this system..
compatibility is a wonderful thing.

CVS drives me crazy. I use the time-honored engineering practice: a
"Revision History" comment block at the top of each source file. Each
revision covers a week or more, not just one little change. It's not
strictly necessary to keep old versions.. what matters is that I can tell
them apart.

Just some thoughts. Good luck with SL/I, Lynn.. hope to see it one of
these years :)

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