[npsnetv-developers] Re: What happened to NPSNET-V

[Andrzej K. <ak...@np...>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan Koehnlein" <koe...@tu...>
To: <ak...@np...>
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 2:00 AM
Subject: What happened to NPSNET-V


> I remember having seen a bit more ;-) (BTW, the setup instructions seem
> to be a little bit out-of-date)

     Sorry about that!  I've been meaning to update them (and the web site)
for a while now.  I'm hoping to do that and put out a "2.0" release on
SourceForge before Christmas.

> I have tried to figure out which way the project is heading but I could
> not even understand what NPSNET-V actually *is* at the moment. It looks
> much more like an editor for 3D scenes than an architecture for DVEs. I
> noticed that you have stripped some --- at least for me --- interesting
> parts like Fishworld and AOIM.

     Yes.  I don't think *any* source code remains from when NPSNET-V
included FishWorld and the AOIM code.  After the students who worked on
those aspects (Dave Washington and Scott Wathen, respectively) graduated, I
decided that a massive rewrite was necessary to achieve the goals that we
had set for the NPSNET-V project.

     I've attached a paper that I wrote for the CVE 2002 conference that
documents the component framework, which is the foundation of the new
architecture.  In a nutshell, the idea is that applications should be
constructed as hierarchical federations of loosely coupled modules rooted at
an invariant microkernel.  All modules support XML
configuration/serialization, and all modules aside from the kernel can be
"hot-swapped"--that is, replaced with updated versions at run-time.

     I'm also attaching the presentation I gave at the CVE conference (and
at the MOVES Open House in August), which outlines some of our plans for the
project.  The "3D editor" aspect is a big part of those plans.  As a
principal driving application, I'm working on a generalized browser/builder
tool that will allow users to create and publish applications, entities, and
worlds by combining and configuring modules.

> Also, the overall structure seems to have changed significantly. Is
> there any general documentation about the new architecture? The javadocs
> do not tell to much about it. The vrtp mailing list hasn't had any input
> on NPSNET since March.

     We decided to switch to a SourceForge hosted list (npsnetv-developers,
see http://sourceforge.net/mail/?group_id=46176), in part because the vrtp
list was originally created for discussion of issues broader than NPSNET-V.
However, you won't see many messages on the archives of that list either.
At the moment, I'm pretty much developing NPSNET-V in isolation (although
working with a couple of students doing related projects who are graduating
next quarter), so it feels a little strange to make announcements when I
know no one's listening.  If you subscribe to that list, though, I'll have
an excuse to be more verbose.  :)

     I'll try to include more general documentation as time goes on.  The
javadocs could almost be considered dangerous, because only a subset of the
classes and interfaces included with NPSNET-V are intended to present an
API, so to speak: those are the ones in the kernel, properties, and services
sub-packages.  At the moment, the best way to figure things out is to look
at the examples (especially the applications under
resources/org/npsnet/v/applications/tests).

> If there is a working version, could you put an archive online? From the
> CVS snapshot it is hard to spot the active parts because there are lots
> of unused old directories and files. Maybe I have checked out the wrong
> module, is it still "npsnetv"?

     The module on SourceForge is indeed "npsnetv".  There shouldn't be any
unused directories or files in it, however (unless you browse it using the
web interface, in which case you'll see quite a few deleted directories).

     Thanks for your interest, and please contact me (or use the SourceForge
list) if you have any questions or comments in the future!

     --Andrzej