Rewrite of Design Document...

["John C. Peterson" <jcp eskimo com>]

Hi Everyone,

  I only have time for a quick post, I spend alot of my work day in
a computer lab that's not connected to the internet. A number of
the important notions of the design are starting to gel more, and I
should find time this weekend to start on a complete rewrite of the
design document (most of the basic ideas to remain the same).

  I think it's important to identify some basic "classes" to flaunt
popular jargon. I'm not suggesting we go to C++, one can still design
and develop in an object oriented fashion without actually using
OO languages (a notion Rob Pike had championed in some of his early
papers on software design, http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/pikestyle.html)

  The database stuff is one good example. If the basic db functionality
is designed correctly, it would be useful for fplan, the avdbtools-like
tools to create and maintain the databases, and a whole host of similar
tools. The suggestion to create an interface that is independent of
the underlying DB is perhaps aggressive, but would prove to be *very*
powerful if it can be pulled off.

  I have exchanged some e-mail with a fellow who used fplan to fly
over the big pond from the US to Europe over the summer. He made some
hacks to compute actual in-flight time estimates for his waypoints.
Hopefully, he can help us gel some of the underlying concepts of
what I called in-flight mode in the design document. (I'm beginning
to think this is really equivalent to the more basic question of
how the output is displayed). His name is Stephen King, and will
hopefully be joining the list soon...

John

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