Re: [Sunuml-developers] Language?

[Matthew S. <m....@bl...>]

Allo,
 
Firstly, I used the wrong email address last time, sorry for any 
confusion - thunderbird is set to that one as default even though I 
don't use it that much now.

Steven Gay wrote:
> Hello,
>
>
> IMO both C+ and Python have advantages and disadvantages
> but as I said in another email I don't mind trying Python.
> (I will need to relearn it ;)

I'm advocating a bit of both.  Get something up and running in python.  
For a lot of the code, python will do, this is after all a GUI based 
program that will spend most of it's time waiting for user input.  Where 
things feel sluggish, reimplement in C++ to take advantage of the speed 
that C++ offers. Eventually, maybe move the whole codebase to C++?  
Something like Mcmillan or freeze could be used to
distribute the app where python isn't already installed?

I like working in both languages, but I must have commited a big sin 
somewhere, I code mainly in VBA these days.  So both languages need a 
polish.
>
> My heart will go to the man-power we have.
> I prefer to have 1 good dedicated programmer in any language
> than several that stop after a few days.
>
> Can you all give an estimate on the level of commitment you can provide?
>
This is a difficult question for me to answer.  I've got an 8 week old 
son and am a father for the first time, so I don't know how much time I 
can dedicate.  At the moment it's not a great deal, weekends tend to be 
filled with family and friends visiting and work is hectic.  Combine 
that with sleepless nights and I'm lucky to get any downtime, let alone 
time to contribute to open source projects.  When the family/friend 
visits slow down and a few projects at work finish, I'll have more 
time.  Ironically, the main projects at work are designed so that I have 
more time to work on projects than day to day stuff and have to work 
less at the weekend/evenings.
>
> Also before we select for a language
> we should discuss what we want to achieve.
>
> A "simple copy" of StarUML or should we add features?
> Which ones?
I haven't checked the code any further than skimming over a source 
file.  But I'd like to ensure a good separation of UI and core, so we 
can decide on a GUI library to use for the main project, but other 
people could implement their own using a different toolkit.  Maybe look 
at using MVC patterns to acheive this (if not already used)?  We could 
really take this to the limits and develop an ajax front end ;)
 
 I don't like the default single file structure, I'd prefer a project 
directory with separate files in.  I don't know why, I'm just 
uncomfortable having all the diagrams lumped together in one file.
 
 The current way diagrams are drawn feels clunky to me, this is a big 
area for improvement.
>
> I updated your rights on the SF wiki & forum.
> ....and I still don't like the settings SF made - they are cumbersome :(
>
>
>
> *@Matthew *Do you want to be developer ?
> Or do you wait we decide for Python?
>
I'd love to, but see above!!  As my little one gets older and I learn 
the ropes of fatherhood.  I'm sure I'll get more time.  Until I can set 
time aside for long coding sessions, I'm sure there'll be plenty of 
small tasks that I could take on.  It's taken me 3 days to write this email!

Matt