[aprssig] questions about the Bulletin Screen "billboard" concept

[Andrew P.]

Hi, Georg.

Thanks for the "encouraging words". :-) Good thing I've been a professional software engineer for 30 years (!), so I've developed a pretty tough hide regarding user complaints.

Re: targets: I'm writing my app in Java, so it's very deliberately "write once, test everywhere." :-) I've already successfully run the same pre-alpha distro on Windows XP and Linux (Fedora Core dialects); when I get it a little further along, I'm going to see if I can find a Mac owner to try it, too. But I still have a bit of work to do (currently 14 tasks to-do on my work list before I'm ready to send the alpha release to Bob for evaluation, and one of those tasks is the first draft of the user manual). Once Bob (and anyone else he recommends) has had a chance to shoot holes in it, I'll be ready to release it to the general ham public.

I met the AVRS author at the ARRL/TAPR DCC this year, and he told me about his library. I've been working on my application independently since June. At this point, considering that this program started as a training exercise in APRS system engineering, I'm probably going to keep what I wrote myself for a while longer, until the app's internal API's settle down a bit more. Doesn't mean I'm not going to look at his AVRS stuff, and see if there is a good convergence point for his library and mine.

So, back to the hack. I'd like to have it out there before it's completely obsolete. :-)

Andrew KA2DDO
Berwyn, Pennsylvania U.S.A.


Date: Wed, 9 Nov 2011 12:58:18 +0100
From: georg at op-co.de
To: aprssig at tapr.org
Subject: Re: [aprssig] questions about the Bulletin Screen "billboard"	concept

* Lynn W. Deffenbaugh (Mr) <ldeffenb at homeside.to> [2011-11-09 03:49]:
> >Looking forward to some good advice.
> Be ready to do it, and re-do it.  What platform are you targeting
> your application to if I may ask?
 
In case it is Java based, maybe you can make use of (and contribute to)
the APRS parser/encoder which is part of AVRS:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/avrs/
 
It would be great for the community as well as for the APRS standard to
have a strong multi-platform library which can be plugged into own
projects. Maybe together we can make that vision come true!
 
> And if you're planning to release it to the general amateur radio
> public, you should probably read G4ILO's excellent description of what
> you can expect from your user base:
> 
> http://blog.g4ilo.com/2010/10/advice-to-amateur-programmers.html
 
However, you should not take the advice too serious. Most of the
feedback I'm getting for APRSdroid is very positive. The only
significant exception are people too impatient to wait for an APRS-IS
passcode.
 
73 from Germany,
 
Georg DO1GL
-- 
APRSdroid - Open Source APRS Position reporting and Mapping on Android
http://aprsdroid.org/m ++ https://market.android.com/details?id=org.aprsdroid.app

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