KOSH [Kommunity Orientated Software Hardware] Weekly Summary Week Commencing: 3rd April 1999 Number: 015 Mailing List: kosh-general In the mailing list this week, the following items were discussed. Please do not email the scribe regarding any of these topics, it is not his job to answer these questions but merely to report the topics of conversation. If you have any queries about this summary, please email ben@kosh.net, stating the Summary Number, and Mailing List Name, and he will try to answer your queries. a) Subject: UML notation Summary of debate: See: http://www.rational.com which details a notation called UML (email to the ML was about the design diagrams that were discussed). b) Subject: Closed KOSH? Summary of debate: It was expressed that some may feel KOSH to be a closed group, particularly with the website being down at the moment. Actions to remedy this situation include getting the web site back up, issuing surveys asking what people want of KOSH (and publishing the results) and promotion of the surveying working group to do this. c) Subject: Standardised coding Summary of debate: Without standards and things like Interface Control Drawings could cause difficulties for programmers later on. Formal specifications for any software created are a must. It was mentioned that perhaps we should not start direct coding for KOSH until standards, schematics, etc have been designed and implemented. However there is no reason why people should not try out their own ideas by coding them in whatever language on whichever system they prefer with the aim to be to port them to KOSH at some point in the future. d) Subject: Recursion Summary of debate: A lot was said on how to implement and use recursion in KOSH programming, including using it for sorting algorithms. However it is not the quickest or most space-efficient construct available. It was mentioned that recursion could in fact be as fast as the same function coded non-recursively. It depends on the language and compiler. e) Subject: More on KOSH, Linux and Windows Summary of debate: One argument against using Linux with KOSH-hosted is that it is based on a 25-year old OS technology. The same can be said of Windows which is based on 15-year old OS technology. However as has been suggested on numerous occasions these two systems provide probably the best opportunities for hosted versions of KOSH, at least to start with. f) Subject: Commercial Open Source Software (COSS) Summary of debate: Details of how to reconcile the advantages of Open Source Software with being paid for ones efforts at: http://www.treetop.demon.co.uk/coss.html The Slashdot discussion is at http://www.slashdot.org/articles/99/04/04/1544211.shtml These approaches could be useful to KOSH which in part at least seeks to combine Open Source with an ultimately commercial venture. A subscription to KOSH could be one way to gather revenue while at the same time providing easy access to source information. g) Subject: Planar into "Pixel Land" Summary of debate: A long debate was had on the merits and possibilities of taking Planar display modes and getting PC Chunky Pixel graphics cards to use them, thus allowing both bitplane and chunky pixel on one device. MCGA, a graphics mode that came after VGA but before(?) SVGA was mentioned. This could in part provide something of a cross over but it may be limited on resolution. h) Subject: Fractal packing Summary of debate: See the following for an introduction to the above: http://www.rasip.fer.hr/research/compress/algorithms/adv/fraccomp/index.htm Two further resources on this are: http://inls.ucsd.edu/y/Fractals/ or http://links.uwaterloo.ca/fractals.home.html i) Subject: KOSH Birthday cake Summary of debate: Joel Newkirk has pledged an awful lot of cookies and a birthday cake for the release party of KOSH v1.0 j) Subject: New ML -> kosh-programming-o Summary of debate: A new open mailing list with the above title has been created by Jason Radford. Subscribe at kosh-programming-o@kosh.net - It is intended to be used to discuss the majority of programming and language issues that have been generated on the general mailing list as well as more besides. k) Subject: Abbreviation reference source Summary of debate: Suggested that a list of all abbreviations in common usage on the internet (such as AFAIK, OFC< IMHO, etc) as well as all the smileys and terms such as OOP and BOOPSI could be written and hosted on the KOSH site. It would help KOSH to be more inclusive. Ruward F. Leenstra mentioned the suggestion to have a Terminology Working Group who could be responsible for this. l) Subject: Request for permanent help with summaries Summary of debate: The scribe of the General Mailing List (mois - Bridge Deady) has asked for offers of assistance with summarising the KOSH General Mailing List, preferably on a permanent basis (and has received some offers to help already - much appreciated). If you can help please email the scribe at csbdeady@mythicz.u-net.com m) Subject: Colour filters Summary of debate: An inbuilt graphics filter that compares pixels side by side could possibly help with some forms of colour blindness and/or "colour fuzziness" (eg: red text on a green background can often swim for a lot of people). n) Subject: Blinux and further Braille discussions Summary of debate: While discussing the use of Braille terminals it was mentioned that Blinux is at http://leb.net/blinux/ The mechanical complexity of a Braille terminal can mean that they are prone to breaking down. It was suggested that it could be replaced by heated spots - but they would have to cool very quickly. A stereo speaker built into the device would alert the user of a change in the device - this would emulate the mechanical clicker. By being stereo it would alert them as to whether the changes are to the left or the right of the centre of the board.