From dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com  Tue Jul  2 10:31:56 2002
From: dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com (Dave Kuhlman)
Date: Mon, 1 Jul 2002 17:31:56 -0700
Subject: [albatross-users] How-to doc for Albatross
In-Reply-To: <m3ptycmc3a.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>; from djc@object-craft.com.au on Fri, Jun 28, 2002 at 11:22:17AM +1000
References: <20020618173140.A84176@cutter.rexx.com> <20020619011148.3B6FF38F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au> <20020619200234.A46789@cutter.rexx.com> <m3vg8ae37k.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au> <20020627133647.A60095@cutter.rexx.com> <m3ptycmc3a.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
Message-ID: <20020701173156.A82508@cutter.rexx.com>

Attached is my How-to document on Albatross.

I've converted it to the Python LaTeX2HTML format.  (Whew.  That
was more fun than I expected.) I've run it through LaTeX2HTML, so
it should be pretty clean.  But, I suspect that you will still want
to hack on it a bit so that it fits in with your document style. 
Also, If you want to pitch it back toward me with comments for some
additional work, please do so.

And, once again, you are welcome to use it as you see fit.

  - Dave K

-- 
Dave Kuhlman
dkuhlman at rexx.com
http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman
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From gimbo at ftech.net  Wed Jul  3 02:57:49 2002
From: gimbo at ftech.net (Andy Gimblett)
Date: Tue, 2 Jul 2002 17:57:49 +0100
Subject: [albatross-users] Two questions (client-side production of static pages)
In-Reply-To: <m33cv8nsdq.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
References: <20020627152510.GA3979@andy.tynant.ftech.net> <m33cv8nsdq.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
Message-ID: <20020702165749.GD13335@andy.tynant.ftech.net>

Howdy,

I just wanted to say thanks for the feedback on my two questions.
Both of these issues are now resolved for me - nice.

Regarding the first point, (output to a file) yes, the push/pop
mechanism did the job perfectly.  Obscure but powerful!

Regarding the second point, (nested macros), this scheme suggested by
Dave Cole works great for me:

> master.html:
> 
>     <al-macro name="master">
>       <al-usearg name="sidebar">
>       Stuff stuff stuff
>       <al-usearg name="body">
>       Blah blah blah
>     </al-macro>
> 
> somepage.html:
> 
>     <al-expand name="master">
>     <al-setarg name="sidebar">
>      <al-expand name="sidebar-with-bells-on"/>
>     </al-setarg>
>     <al-setarg name="body">
>         Foo bar, foo bar, foo bar...
>     </al-setarg>
>     </al-expand>

I just had to modify my "site builder" scripts to read in all the
templates from a certain directory, rather than just master.html (so
it picks up sidebar-with-bells-on.html, etc.) - so now I have one
directory of "utility" templates, seperate from the rest of my
templates.

Many thanks,

Andy

-- 
Andy Gimblett - Programmer - Frontier Internet Services Limited
Tel: 029 20 820 044 Fax: 029 20 820 035 http://www.frontier.net.uk/
Statements made are at all times subject to Frontier's Terms and
Conditions of Business, which are available upon request.


From andrewm at object-craft.com.au  Wed Jul  3 10:10:30 2002
From: andrewm at object-craft.com.au (Andrew McNamara)
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 10:10:30 +1000
Subject: [albatross-users] Two questions (client-side production of static pages) 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Tue, 02 Jul 2002 17:57:49 +0100."
             <20020702165749.GD13335@andy.tynant.ftech.net> 
Message-ID: <20020703001030.F0FCD38F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au>

>Regarding the second point, (nested macros), this scheme suggested by
>Dave Cole works great for me:
>
>> master.html:
>> 
>>     <al-macro name="master">
>>       <al-usearg name="sidebar">
>>       Stuff stuff stuff
>>       <al-usearg name="body">
>>       Blah blah blah
>>     </al-macro>
>> 
>> somepage.html:
>> 
>>     <al-expand name="master">
>>     <al-setarg name="sidebar">
>>      <al-expand name="sidebar-with-bells-on"/>
>>     </al-setarg>
>>     <al-setarg name="body">
>>         Foo bar, foo bar, foo bar...
>>     </al-setarg>
>>     </al-expand>
>
>I just had to modify my "site builder" scripts to read in all the
>templates from a certain directory, rather than just master.html (so
>it picks up sidebar-with-bells-on.html, etc.) - so now I have one
>directory of "utility" templates, seperate from the rest of my
>templates.

Yes, currently my script does a load_templates() and to_html() on
all the files in a "templates" sub-directory, before processing the
directory itself.

Looking at the internals of Albatross, however, I realised that it would
be possible, with a small change, to register the macros at load time;
this allows you to first load_template() all the files in a directory,
without caring if they contain macros or not, then do the to_html()
on each.  It also means, within a given file, that you can use a template
before it is defined.

The downside is that you have a whole directory worth of template objects
in memory at a time, rather than just one file and associated macros.

Dave also thinks this is reasonable, so it should appear in the next
Albatross release.

-- 
Andrew McNamara, Senior Developer, Object Craft
http://www.object-craft.com.au/


From andrewm at object-craft.com.au  Wed Jul  3 16:41:20 2002
From: andrewm at object-craft.com.au (Andrew McNamara)
Date: Wed, 03 Jul 2002 16:41:20 +1000
Subject: [albatross-users] How-to doc for Albatross 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 01 Jul 2002 17:31:56 MST."
             <20020701173156.A82508@cutter.rexx.com> 
Message-ID: <20020703064120.6057838F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au>

>Attached is my How-to document on Albatross.

I've finally had a look - very nice!

>I've converted it to the Python LaTeX2HTML format.  (Whew.  That
>was more fun than I expected.) I've run it through LaTeX2HTML, so
>it should be pretty clean.  But, I suspect that you will still want
>to hack on it a bit so that it fits in with your document style. 
>Also, If you want to pitch it back toward me with comments for some
>additional work, please do so.

The style would be the standard python style, which we use for the
Albatross doco. I suspect this is derived from files in the Python
source distribution - Dave will know.

>And, once again, you are welcome to use it as you see fit.

I imagine we'll put a link to it off the Albatross page with an approriate
credit.

Thanks again.

-- 
Andrew McNamara, Senior Developer, Object Craft
http://www.object-craft.com.au/


From djc at object-craft.com.au  Wed Jul  3 21:40:18 2002
From: djc at object-craft.com.au (Dave Cole)
Date: 03 Jul 2002 21:40:18 +1000
Subject: [albatross-users] How-to doc for Albatross
In-Reply-To: <20020703064120.6057838F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au>
References: <20020703064120.6057838F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au>
Message-ID: <m37kkdujj1.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew McNamara <andrewm at object-craft.com.au> writes:

>> Attached is my How-to document on Albatross.
Andrew> I've finally had a look - very nice!

>> I've converted it to the Python LaTeX2HTML format.  (Whew.  That
>> was more fun than I expected.) I've run it through LaTeX2HTML, so
>> it should be pretty clean.  But, I suspect that you will still want
>> to hack on it a bit so that it fits in with your document style.
>> Also, If you want to pitch it back toward me with comments for some
>> additional work, please do so.

Andrew> The style would be the standard python style, which we use for
Andrew> the Albatross doco. I suspect this is derived from files in
Andrew> the Python source distribution - Dave will know.

The most excellent work done by the heroes who made Python
documentation look so good should not be wasted :-)

Download the Python source distribution and unpack it somewhere.  By
doing something like the following in a Makefile you too can have cool
Python documentation:

Make sure that you alter PYTHON_SRC to point at the top level
directory where you unpacked the Python source.

- Makefile  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
PYTHON_SRC = ${HOME}/download/Python-2.2

MKHOWTO = $(PYTHON_SRC)/Doc/tools/mkhowto

PAPER = a4

DOCFILES = mydoc.tex a-file.tex b-file.tex c-file.tex

all:    pdf

pdf:    $(DOCFILES)
	$(MKHOWTO) --pdf --$(PAPER) mydoc.tex

html:   $(DOCFILES)
	$(MKHOWTO) --image-type png --html mydoc.tex
	mkdir -p mydoc/icons
	cp $(PYTHON_SRC)/Doc/html/icons/* mydoc/icons/
# the iconserver option of mkhowto is broken since it writes
# it to the end if the init_file where they aren't useful anymore,
# so we work around it:
	for f in `find mydoc -type f`; do \
	  cat $$f | sed s/\.\.\\/icons/icons/g > $${f}2; \
	  mv $${f}2 $$f; \
	done
	-rm mydoc/mydoc2
	-rm mydoc/icons/icons2
	-rm -f mydoc/images.*
	-rm -f mydoc/*.old
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

>> And, once again, you are welcome to use it as you see fit.

Andrew> I imagine we'll put a link to it off the Albatross page with
Andrew> an approriate credit.

Andrew> Thanks again.

Seconded.

- Dave

-- 
http://www.object-craft.com.au



From dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com  Fri Jul  5 10:05:20 2002
From: dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com (Dave Kuhlman)
Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2002 17:05:20 -0700
Subject: [albatross-users] An application generator for Albatross - preliminary work
In-Reply-To: <m37kkdujj1.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>; from djc@object-craft.com.au on Wed, Jul 03, 2002 at 09:40:18PM +1000
References: <20020703064120.6057838F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au> <m37kkdujj1.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
Message-ID: <20020704170519.A91043@cutter.rexx.com>

Attached is support I've been working on to enable developers to
generate Albatross applications from an application description. 
Actually, the application description is an XML document that
contains a specification of an FSM (finite state machine).

Here is a bit of rational, or,  Why I'm doing this -- I believe
that business analysts (those who design and manage applications,
but who are not programmers) want to produce Web applications or
Web services from an application specification.  In the Web
services world, they are busily at work defining a variety of PMLs
(process markup languages), for example WSFL, WSCI, XLANG, UML,
etc.  I believe that some of the content of a PML can be mapped
onto or translated into an FSM and then into an Albatross
application in two stages:

    PML --> FSM --> Albatross application

What is attached is an attempt at the 2nd stage of this
translation.

You will need to install PyXML in order generate an application. 

However, if you only want to look at samples of the files
generated, I've generated a few.  Look in the sub-directories
appgen/TestObject and appgen/TestModular.

The attachment contains documentation generated with the Python
LaTex2HTML tool-set.  (Give someone a powerful tool and they
become dangerous.  Heh, heh. Heh, heh.) I've included a text
version below.

I'm very interested in any ideas, comments, and suggestions.

  - Dave K


                     An Application Generator for Albatross                  

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                     An Application Generator for Albatross

                                  Dave Kuhlman

                           E-mail: dkuhlman at rexx.com

                                  Release 1.0
                                  July 2, 2002

                                  Front Matter

  Abstract:

   This document describes the use of fsmlib to generate skeleton Albatross
   applications. fsmlib can take an XML representation of an FSM (finite
   state machine) and generate an Albatross application containing a page for
   each state in the FSM. Both Python code and HTML Albatross template files
   are generated.

Contents

     * Front Matter
          * 1 Introduction - What It Does
          * 2 How-to Use it
               * 2.1 Commands
               * 2.2 Options
          * 3 Input - Defining the FSM XML Document
               * 3.1 Element fsm
               * 3.2 Element endstatenames
               * 3.3 Element state
               * 3.4 Element transition
               * 3.5 Element inputs
     * License, See also, Etc.
     * About this document ...

                                        
                         1 Introduction - What It Does

   fsmlib generates the skeleton of an Albatross application.

   It takes an XML document that describes the pages in the application.

   The XML input document describes an FSM (finite state machine). The XML
   FSM document a list of states. Each state in the FSM describes a page in
   the application. Each state in the FSM (or page in the application)
   contains a list of transitions. Each transition specifies (1) a target
   state (page) and (2) the conditions (a button to be pressed and input
   items to be entered) that must occur in order to go-to that target state
   (page).

   For each state in the FSM fsmlib generates Python code and (optionally) an
   HTML template file for one page in the application. For each transition,
   fsmlib generates Python code to activate that transition. In particular,
   for each transition, Python code is generated to test for the button and
   to test the values of the specified input items.

   The XML input document is described in detail in the section ``Defining
   the FSM XML Document''3.

                                        
                                2 How-to Use it

   The ability to load an FSM document and generate an Albatross application
   from it are in module fsmlib.

   A Python script (runAppGen.py) is provided as a harness to call the
   application generation functionality in fsmlib.

   Here is the help message for runAppGen.py:

 Usage:
     python testGen.py <command> [ <option> ] <in_file_name> <out_file_name>

 Commands:
     -o    Generate object-based Albatross application.
     -m    Generate modular Albatross application.
     -h    Display this help.

 Options:
     -p    Generate HTML template files.

 Examples:
     python testGen.py -o fsm_app1.xml dispatch.py
         Generate object-based Albatross application.

     python testGen.py -m -p fsm_app2.xml dispatch.py
         Generate modular Albatross application and generate
             HTML template files.

2.1 Commands

   -o
           Generate an object-based Albatross application. An object-based
           application is one which contains a module containing a class for
           each page. These classes and the initialization code for the
           application are written to out_file_name.

   -m
           Generate a modular Albatross application. A modular application
           contains one python module for each page in the application. Each
           module contains functions page_process, page_display, etc. The
           application initialization code and top-level logic is written to
           file out_file_name.

2.2 Options

   -p
           Generate an Albatross HTML template page file for each state in
           the FSM. The generated file contains a button and input items for
           the button and input items specified in each transition for the
           state. Note: Since one file is generated in the current directory
           for each state (page) in the application, you may want to change
           to an empty directory before using the -p option.

                                        
                    3 Input - Defining the FSM XML Document

   The file fsm1.xml contains a sample XML FSM document.

   The file fsm.xsd contains an XSchema description of XML FSM documents.

   Here is a description of the elements in the XML FSM document:

3.1 Element fsm

     * name -- The name of the FSM or application.

     * lastmodified -- The date of the most recent modification of this
       document.

     * description -- A description of this application.

     * currentstate -- The current state. This element might be used when
       saving an FSM during execution.

     * startstatename -- The start or initial state (page) for the FSM.

     * endstatenames -- A list of the names of the end/last states or pages
       in the application.

     * state -- A definition of one of the states (pages) in the application.

3.2 Element endstatenames

     * endstatename -- The name of one of the end or final states (pages) in
       the application.

3.3 Element state

     * name -- The name of the state. Note: The page name can be different
       and is specified by pagename.

     * pagename -- The name of the page associated with this state.

     * transition -- A definition of a transition from this state (page) to
       another state (page).

3.4 Element transition

     * button -- The button which must be pressed in order for this
       transition to be activated. Python code is generated (in the function
       page_process) to test whether this button was pressed.

     * inputs -- A list of inputs along with conditions (tests) on the
       inputs. All of these conditions must be satisfied in order for this
       transition to be activated.

     * action -- And action to be performed when the transition is activated.
       Note: Not currently implemented.

     * newstatename -- The name of the state which will become the current
       state if this transition is activated.

3.5 Element inputs

     * input -- An input. A Python test and an HTML text edit field is
       generated for each input item.

          * name -- The name of the input item.

          * value -- The value for comparison.

          * condition -- The test to be applied to the input and value. The
            following values are accepted:

             +-------------------------------------------------------------+
             | Condition  | Meaning               | Translation in Python  |
             |------------+-----------------------+------------------------|
             | eq         | equal                 | ==                     |
             |------------+-----------------------+------------------------|
             | ne         | not equal             | !=                     |
             |------------+-----------------------+------------------------|
             | lt         | less than             | <                      |
             |------------+-----------------------+------------------------|
             | gt         | greater than          | >                      |
             |------------+-----------------------+------------------------|
             | le         | less than or equal    | <=                     |
             |------------+-----------------------+------------------------|
             | ge         | greater than or equal | >=                     |
             +-------------------------------------------------------------+

                                        
                            License, See also, Etc.

                        Copyright (c) 2002 Dave Kuhlman

   Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
   copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
   to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
   the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
   and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
   Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

   The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
   all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

   THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
   IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
   FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
   THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
   LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
   FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
   DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

   See Also:

   Dave's Web Site
           for more software and information on using Python for XML and the
           Web

   Albatross Web Site
           for information on the Albatross package

   The main Python Web Site
           for more information on Python

   The Python XML Special Interest Group
           for more information on processing XML with Python

                            About this document ...

   An Application Generator for Albatross, July 2, 2002, Release 1.0

   This document was generated using the LaTeX2HTML translator.

   LaTeX2HTML is Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, Nikos Drakos,
   Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds, and Copyright (c) 1997,
   1998, Ross Moore, Mathematics Department, Macquarie University, Sydney.

   The application of LaTeX2HTML to the Python documentation has been heavily
   tailored by Fred L. Drake, Jr. Original navigation icons were contributed
   by Christopher Petrilli.

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

                     An Application Generator for Albatross                  

     ----------------------------------------------------------------------

   Release 1.0, documentation updated on July 2, 2002.


-- 
Dave Kuhlman
dkuhlman at rexx.com
http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman
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From andrewm at object-craft.com.au  Fri Jul  5 13:32:38 2002
From: andrewm at object-craft.com.au (Andrew McNamara)
Date: Fri, 05 Jul 2002 13:32:38 +1000
Subject: [albatross-users] Albatross FAQ
Message-ID: <20020705033238.34F4438F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au>

I've set up an Albatross FAQ (using Python's faqwiz). It's pretty basic
at the moment (it covers a range of general questions, as well as a few
of the topics dicussed on this list). If you can think of any additional
items that should be included, let me know.

    http://www.object-craft.com.au/cgi-bin/faq/albatross?req=compat

-- 
Andrew McNamara, Senior Developer, Object Craft
http://www.object-craft.com.au/


From djc at object-craft.com.au  Sat Jul  6 16:31:45 2002
From: djc at object-craft.com.au (Dave Cole)
Date: 06 Jul 2002 16:31:45 +1000
Subject: [albatross-users] How-to doc for Albatross
In-Reply-To: <20020701173156.A82508@cutter.rexx.com>
References: <20020618173140.A84176@cutter.rexx.com>
	<20020619011148.3B6FF38F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au>
	<20020619200234.A46789@cutter.rexx.com>
	<m3vg8ae37k.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
	<20020627133647.A60095@cutter.rexx.com>
	<m3ptycmc3a.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
	<20020701173156.A82508@cutter.rexx.com>
Message-ID: <m3k7o91i5q.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Kuhlman <dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com> writes:

Dave> Attached is my How-to document on Albatross.  I've converted it
Dave> to the Python LaTeX2HTML format.  (Whew.  That was more fun than
Dave> I expected.) I've run it through LaTeX2HTML, so it should be
Dave> pretty clean.  But, I suspect that you will still want to hack
Dave> on it a bit so that it fits in with your document style.  Also,
Dave> If you want to pitch it back toward me with comments for some
Dave> additional work, please do so.

Dave> And, once again, you are welcome to use it as you see fit.

I just looked at the LaTeX source.  You left our copyright on your
work - doesn't seem fair.

Anyway, it comes up very nicely in PDF.

- Dave

-- 
http://www.object-craft.com.au



From djc at object-craft.com.au  Sat Jul  6 16:43:49 2002
From: djc at object-craft.com.au (Dave Cole)
Date: 06 Jul 2002 16:43:49 +1000
Subject: [albatross-users] An application generator for Albatross - preliminary work
In-Reply-To: <20020704170519.A91043@cutter.rexx.com>
References: <20020703064120.6057838F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au>
	<m37kkdujj1.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
	<20020704170519.A91043@cutter.rexx.com>
Message-ID: <m3eleh1hlm.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>

>>>>> "Dave" == Dave Kuhlman <dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com> writes:

Dave> Attached is support I've been working on to enable developers to
Dave> generate Albatross applications from an application description.
Dave> Actually, the application description is an XML document that
Dave> contains a specification of an FSM (finite state machine).

Dave> Here is a bit of rational, or, Why I'm doing this -- I believe
Dave> that business analysts (those who design and manage
Dave> applications, but who are not programmers) want to produce Web
Dave> applications or Web services from an application specification.
Dave> In the Web services world, they are busily at work defining a
Dave> variety of PMLs (process markup languages), for example WSFL,
Dave> WSCI, XLANG, UML, etc.  I believe that some of the content of a
Dave> PML can be mapped onto or translated into an FSM and then into
Dave> an Albatross application in two stages:

[snip]

I've had a look at the code and the resulting output.  This is the
kind of stuff which would make Tim Churches very excited.

Things could get very interesting and tangled if you built an
Albatross application to construct the XML document tree...

One of the problems with this type of application is that once you
have started modifying the generated code you cannot go back.  You can
go some of the way to handling this by dropping special comments in
the generated code which tell the tool and the user which code belongs
to the tool.

- Dave

-- 
http://www.object-craft.com.au



From dan at grassi.org  Sun Jul  7 02:16:08 2002
From: dan at grassi.org (Dan Grassi)
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 12:16:08 -0400
Subject: [albatross-users] How-to doc for Albatross
In-Reply-To: <m3k7o91i5q.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
Message-ID: <AE20A021-90FB-11D6-98CA-00039346A28A@grassi.org>

At least in the US, and I suspect among many countries, no copyright 
notice is necessary in order to copyright a work.  I suspect that it is 
the same in much of the world because US copyright law was brought into 
compliance with European copyright law.  Thus just because a work does 
not have a copyright notice does not mean that it is free of copyright 
and can be appropriated.

But it is a good idea to include a copyright notice.

Dan

On Saturday, July 6, 2002, at 02:31 AM, Dave Cole wrote:

> You left our copyright on your
> work - doesn't seem fair.



From dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com  Sun Jul  7 10:08:04 2002
From: dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com (Dave Kuhlman)
Date: Sat, 6 Jul 2002 17:08:04 -0700
Subject: [albatross-users] An application generator for Albatross - preliminary work
In-Reply-To: <m3eleh1hlm.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>; from djc@object-craft.com.au on Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 04:43:49PM +1000
References: <20020703064120.6057838F5A@coffee.object-craft.com.au> <m37kkdujj1.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au> <20020704170519.A91043@cutter.rexx.com> <m3eleh1hlm.fsf@ferret.object-craft.com.au>
Message-ID: <20020706170804.A23572@cutter.rexx.com>

On Sat, Jul 06, 2002 at 04:43:49PM +1000, Dave Cole wrote:
> >>>>> "Dave" == Dave Kuhlman <dkuhlman at cutter.rexx.com> writes:
> 
> I've had a look at the code and the resulting output.  This is the
> kind of stuff which would make Tim Churches very excited.
> 
> Things could get very interesting and tangled if you built an
> Albatross application to construct the XML document tree...
> 
> One of the problems with this type of application is that once you
> have started modifying the generated code you cannot go back.  You can
> go some of the way to handling this by dropping special comments in
> the generated code which tell the tool and the user which code belongs
> to the tool.

The kind of capability that you are suggesting, I believe, is the
ability to create a model or specification of your application,
generate code, and then make changes to the model or the generated
code while keeping both in sync.  That's a very big capability for
a little guy like me.  It's the kind of software engineering
capability that a company like Rational (http://www.rational.com)
has spent lots of man years and lots of money designing and
implementing.

I believe that there are some reasonably easy things that I can do
to get part-way there, however, ...

But, I think that I'd better gain some experience and learn more
about whether this is a valuable thing to do and about what would
valuable to do before I try to solve that *very* hard problem.

And, I hope to learn some things and share some ideas with Dan
Grassi on this.

I'm going on vacation for a couple of weeks.  I hope to see a bit
of Canada's prairie provinces.  I'll be thinking about this while
gone and intend to get back on it when I return.

  - Dave K

-- 
Dave Kuhlman
dkuhlman at rexx.com
http://www.rexx.com/~dkuhlman


From andrewm at object-craft.com.au  Mon Jul  8 17:19:25 2002
From: andrewm at object-craft.com.au (Andrew McNamara)
Date: Mon, 08 Jul 2002 17:19:25 +1000
Subject: [albatross-users] How-to doc for Albatross 
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 01 Jul 2002 17:31:56 MST."
             <20020701173156.A82508@cutter.rexx.com> 
Message-ID: <20020708071925.ACB2838F61@coffee.object-craft.com.au>

>Attached is my How-to document on Albatross.
>
>I've converted it to the Python LaTeX2HTML format.  (Whew.  That
>was more fun than I expected.) I've run it through LaTeX2HTML, so
>it should be pretty clean.  But, I suspect that you will still want
>to hack on it a bit so that it fits in with your document style. 
>Also, If you want to pitch it back toward me with comments for some
>additional work, please do so.
>
>And, once again, you are welcome to use it as you see fit.

I've put this up on our web server:

  http://www.object-craft.com.au/projects/albatross/albatross_beginners_how
to/

Note that I've changed the copyright to "Dave Kuhlman" - seems only fair -
hope this is okay.

I've added a Makefile, and a rudementary "copyright" file, and renamed
the file albatross_beginners_howto.tex. I've attached the modified
version in case you want to make changes...

-- 
Andrew McNamara, Senior Developer, Object Craft
http://www.object-craft.com.au/

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