Re: App blueprint, advice please!

[Murray Cumming <murrayc murrayc com>]

On Sat, 2007-12-15 at 21:27 -0500, Patrick wrote:
> Sorry for the long email but I really could use some help. I sell used 
> lab instruments to people doing great work researching cures. The closed 
> source programs to control and process data from these instruments often 
> cost 20K. The people providing the software really abuse their legal 
> positions. Writing an open source replacement has become an obsession 
> for me.
>
> I want to build an App to control dozens or even hundreds of instruments 
> using different ports/buses (GPIB, Serial, Parallel etc) and I want to 
> do some fairly complex data processing after. Then I want to be able to 
> save the data in a database and/or in numerous formats.

Once you have the python modules to do the IO with the devices, you can
use those python modules from Glom, to put everything in a database. You
can then write another python script for a button in Glom that exports
to whatever other extra file format you want. That at least saves you
from having to do much database or UI coding.

You should be able to test this idea quite easily once you can do
python-based IO with at least one of these devices.

> The problem is, I am not qualified for all this, I am a part time, self 
> taught programmer. I will need to pay others to bring this to fruition. 
> I figure the best way to solve a complex problem is to break it down 
> into  smaller parts. I was thinking about writing  small GTK/Python, 
> GTK/C programs that can read from standard input and write to standard 
> output. I was thinking that I could write customized BASH scripts for 
> people to connect these small programs into a cohesive  App. When others 
> get involved they could simply do the same and write more custom BASH 
> commands, indeed in their language of choice.
>
> I think using Bash as the App "nervous system" and Python/C as the 
> muscle would make sense but I have never seen such an App, which makes 
> me think it is probably a stupid idea.
>
> I have been going around in circles for about a year now and still do 
> not have a line of code to show for myself. This project may take many 
> years. Any feedback on my blueprint would be really appreciated-Patrick

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