[Jmol-developers] Nano@home co-operation

[<val...@pi...>]

Hi all,

 >> > BTW, I have had further contact with Val=E8re from the Nano@Home=20
project,
 >> > and see has become more to the point on cooperation... she has give=
n a
 >> > few comments on the current Jmol (v7) which I will send to the list
 >> > soon, and she told me that a possible way of cooperation would be t=
hat
 >> > their GUI team would join in on the new renderer engine... She did=20
ask me
 >> > to query you about "how you would feel about working in a team"...

 >
 > I would love to have some help! There is much more work than I can do.
 >
 > At a high level, my request would be that they:
 > - take the job seriously
 > - conform to some general coding standards regarding
 > * indentation style and naming
 > * efficiency
 > * dynamic memory allocation
 > - be open to constructive criticism and code review/peer review
 >
 > I will strive to do the same ... particularly the last point
 >
 > Please have her get in touch with me when you think it is appropriate.

First I would like to remark that I am a man, Egon!
Sorry if I gave you a false impression of myself? :-))

I am glad you feel that way about a possible co-operation Miguel.
Your requests (above) are the same as I would suggest if I were in your=20
place so I see no problem there.
The nano@home project is actually more of a science project than=20
anything else. I/we expect serious people working on it. As far as I can=20
tell at least some of our forum members are university students and=20
graduates. Due to the nature of the project I think others (read: less=20
educated) people will be discouraged if only by the problems we will be=20
facing of which only a minority will be on programming.
I can not tell you at the moment how many people we will be able to put=20
on helping with the 3D engine.
We are only in the start-up phase at the moment. We are currently=20
working on setting up mailing lists for our teams. Only if this is done=20
we will accept developers. I am also working on a very crude todo list=20
for each team so that people get an idea about the work involved.

In fact I am not 100% sure if we will be using Jmol at all. It is at the=20
moment a proposition made by me, and the initiator of the project Robert=20
Bradbury is inclined to go along with it. At the moment I am only the=20
(humble) acting co-ordinator of the project.

I would be grateful Miguel if you could give me more details about this=20
new 3D engine you are working on. It would help me defending our=20
possible co-operation to the other critical project members.
Especial points of interest for us are:
1. Speed! The, as ever, big Java question. Will the engine be able to=20
handle thousands even tens-of-thousands of atoms?
2. How far is the development of the new 3D engine?
3. A list of capabilities would be helpful, present and possible future=20
ones.

I would expect that in the beginning the co-operation would be a full=20
one until the engine is complete and running bugfree. After that we will=20
probably only co-operate on parts that are of mutual interest.

Val=E8re