From: Jim Peters (jim_at_uazu.net)
Date: 2002-02-27 11:38:44
John Morrison wrote:
> Doug could you please put a step by step guide together.
> Including where to get it (URLS) etc
> any special instructions (Probably NON)
>
> Anyone volunteer (Jim??) to do the same for Windows ???.
If you'd taken the trouble to download the ZIP file, you'd see that
the work had already been done, or was in the process of being done.
And, NO, I'm not going to stick my work in your folder. I'm going to
put it up on my site where I can keep things up-to-date much more
easily.
> That will give any non-techies an easy way to get it on and compile
> the program latter!
The build instructions could well vary from release to release, so it
is better to ship them with the release.
> Any comments from those that have worked with Windows??
If you're using MinGW and MSYS, then you will be able to do
"./configure; make", and maybe even "make install" (once I've learned
'automake'). For other Windows build environments, people will have
to improvise their own build. This isn't too hard, so long as they
are willing to fiddle around getting everything together. If people
want to contribute instructions, I can add them to the archive.
MinGW/MSYS is much easier to support as it runs UNIX ./configure
scripts directly (as well as any other UNIX shell script).
John -- I'm a little worried that you're big on plans, but not so big
on research. I mean, earlier you suggested dropping UDP packets, but
this indicates that you still have no understanding of what effect
this would have on the analysis. If you substituted zeros for the
missing data, then all the filters will go crazy, with artifacts
everywhere.
Take a look at BWView and some of Jim's data packaged with it -- look
at what happens when there is a glitch in the input data. Even some
of the points where there was sync-loss (perhaps just one bad sample)
cause significant artifacts.
I agree that planning is really important and all of that, but if
you're not learning about the problem-space, then your plans are going
to end up being miles off the mark.
It's like me planning an expedition to the moon. I can easily draw
diagrams with arrows and modular components and so on, but the thing
isn't going to fly without lots of real work and real testing. My
assumption that TNT would be good as rocket fuel because it makes a
large bang might not actually turn out to be valid in practice.
If you build a big design on top of a bunch of fundamental flaws like
dropping UDP packets, you might end up with an immense rewrite on your
hands even before you've got something working, with stacks of wasted
code to throw away.
Linus Torvalds (creator of the Linux kernel) wrote this:
> Did I mention my belief in the true meaning of "intelligence"?
>
> "Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet get the work
> done".
>
> Lazy programmers are the best programmers. Think Tom Sawyer painting
> the fence. That's intelligence.
>
> Requiring almost no effort is a big plus in my book.
>
> It's the "clever" programmer I'm afraid of. The one who isn't afraid
> of generating complexity, because he has a Plan (capital "P"), and he
> knows he can work out the details later.
I kept that quote, because I was very much a "clever" programmer at
the time, and was angry at Linus for writing this! I thought he was
wrong, yet at the same time suspected he might be right. I was always
making big Plans, and then falling over because I had generated too
much complexity for myself.
I know what you are going to say -- you think you are being
"intelligent" by Linus' definition. But actually, I think you are
being "clever".
I am still learning how to not be "clever", how to make real progress
with real results instead of making very comprehensive Plans with no
results at all.
However, maybe your job here is to remind me not to make "Plans"! In
which case, don't let me stop you!
Jim
-- Jim Peters (_)/=\~/_(_) jim_at_uazu.net (_) /=\ ~/_ (_) Uazú (_) /=\ ~/_ (_) http:// B'ham, UK (_) ____ /=\ ____ ~/_ ____ (_) uazu.net
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : 2002-07-27 12:28:39 BST