David W. Myers - 2001-02-13

<P>To me this is an idea in need of an implementation. I've been thinking about drafts
(I'm a fan of US Football, the NFL, and this is 'draft season' for this league) and
realized that it was a problem that could be abstracted and solved if:</P>
<BR>
<P>1. For each team in the draft, you had a ordered list of players, ranked by their
skill.</P>
<P>2. You had a rule (e.g. a rules file) for selecting these players, unique to a team.</P>
<BR>
<P>Rules for a draft might be: draft the best possible athlete, or draft a player in a
position of need. The potential complexity of a rules file (and the fact that any
particular implementation of a rules interpreter would inevitably lead to contention)
is one reason I think open source is desirable in this kind of project. Those who
object to the particulars of a rules implementation can write their own.</P>

<P>The project is in a design and prototyping stage. I have some code but it's
incomplete, and I'm working on documentation as well. I can't speak of a time
frame as I have no idea what kind of help to expect on this. The more help I
get, the faster things can get done. Obviously it would be desirable to complete
the prototype before the April 2001 draft, but we'll see.</P>

<P>Grayhaired.</P>