Re: [pm2erglib] Any life in this project?

[Simon H. a C. <si...@ho...>]

Terry Braun wrote:

> Well, I have been thinking about it. I've been rowing, I also like java and
> I would like to be able to at least capture sessions. And import them into
> other
> programs. I saw that the spec came out and have it here on my desktop totally
> unread. So maybe I'll read it and see what I can make of it. (OK I just read
> it).

If/when I have time to work on the project I'd start with Java because:
- it is multiplatform (and I'm a mac user primarily -- though I've done my
fair share of Windows programming).
- Windows users can already use eRow, so you're not getting much bang for
the buck making a windows only solution
- Unix/Linux app programming is not my forte -- I've only done limited X
programming, and I didn't find it very rewarding
- I enjoy Java :-)

> At one time I had considered using the commapi so pm2 applications could run
> on Unix,
> Win or a Mac. But the Commapi doesn't seem to be that viable. Blackdown has a
> version for
> Linux, I'm not sure that most Mac's even HAVE a serial port any more so I
> think maybe the Mac is out.

Macs nowadays all have USB, but many Mac users sooner or later go out and
buy a USB->serial converter. As far as commapi, the good folks at
jmri.sourceforge.net (Java Model Railway) appear to have worked out all the
java serial issues. (The mac version of javax.comm was written by Patrick
Beard -- who, incidentally, I used to work with, though he wouldn't remember
me...)

With comms out of the way, the database is probably the next issue. Either
you go with MySQL or perhaps even more simply, there is at least one stable
Java SQL DB on sourceforge that should be easy to use --
http://hsqldb.sourceforge.net/

Enough for today...
-s