Re: Developers tools?

[Douglas Loss <dloss@csrlink.net>]

>>>Brian == Brian <briank@hex.net> wrote at Sun, 6 Dec 1998 16:06:48 -0400 :

>It seems to me there is a lot of bandwidth being taken up concerning what
>development tools to use, what languages, etc.  It's a bit difficult to
>decide on these issues if a concrete set of objectives or goals is
>absent.

>The existing development tools out there are certainly sufficient to
>produce quality software.  If SEUL chooses to limit itself to a
>particular genre of software development (i.e., all applications are to
>be multimedia capable, developed using X toolkit and script/language Y),
>I foresee otherwise willing developers going elsewhere to volunteer their
>services.
>
>I'd recommend focusing on a set of software implementation goals, without
>imposing burdensome restrictions on how those goals are to be met.

This is quite true.  That's why I've been pushing for a functional
description of what the school administrative software should do, and why
we're thinking about using XML as a sort of middleware to allow anything that
 can parse XML to be able to connect to our data.  I'm quite sure that SEUL
isn't planning to limit itself to a particular set of tools or languages;
anything is fair game.  Still, if we're going to have teams working on these
projects, _some_ agreement on common languages and tools has to be reached.
Ithink that would be up to the teams themselves, though.

--
Doug Loss            An idealist is one who, on noticing that
dloss@csrlink.net    roses smell better than cabbage, concludes
(717) 326-3987       that they will also make better soup.
                        H. L. Mencken