David Mathog (mathog at seqvax.caltech.edu) wrote:
: In article <39b2rt$sie at netnews.upenn.edu>, tisdall at amalthea.humgen.upenn.edu (James Tisdall) writes...
: >It will be based on
: >the new version 5 of the "perl" language, that includes a "Tk extension".
: Looking the gift horse straight in the mouth...
: Speaking as a harried system(s) manager, would all you developers please make
: a real effort to not develop on top of layer after layer of semiportable
: software? I get really tired of having to install 2, 3, or 4 pieces of
: software just to get the desired program running. More often than not,
: the requisite version of one of the support packages won't work on one
: platform or another (yes, especially VMS).
I would agree, but I haven't seen much of that.
I would really appeciate Makefile and install targets. Most of the
biology related code doesn't even give install instructions.
: Portable software, which is relatively ulcer free in terms of installation
: and porting, adheres to the following guidelines:
: 1. It is written in ANSI C or Fortran 77 (but NOT both).
Doesn't really matter, but Fortran is being unbundled and I don't know
if Linux has a fortran compiler.
: 2. If it has an X11 GUI interface, it should only require Xt. If that is
: insufficient, include Xmu. If that won't cut it, use Motif in preference
: to SunView or even Xaw. Yeah, Motif costs money, but it comes
: standard on most machines, the vendors support it, and it can be
: obtained for any X11 based platform. Conversely, SunView is is not
: often available on platforms other than Suns, and the support for Xaw
: is a bit spotty too.
I kind of agree. Just so long as the developer is aware of the fact
that "Motif costs money" and make the decision pased on that.
SunView is dead and almost no one uses it anymore. Xview is also
basicly dead. I don't think Xview is being developed and I don't know
if it is supported. Sun lost that battle.
: For graphics intensive applications like protein modeling, be *real*
: sure that there is no other way before committing to OpenGL.
It is easy to develop, but few people have it.
: If at all possible, write the GUI section so that X11 can be ripped
: out and Windows, Mac, or whatever, calls substituted instead.
Well, that is always a good idea. Well designed code will always do this.
: 10. Provide adequate documentation in (at least) Text and PostScript.
: (But not PostScript without Text - there is often no way to read it on
: line). A set of "man" pages is no substitute for a decent manual.
: As part of the documentation, always distribute example input and output
: files so that others can verify that the program is working properly
: on their platform.
And HTML!!!
Neal
