The Plain Vanilla Magical Machine 2003

Outline for presentation on the Plain Vanilla concept at the APL2000 User's conference in Naples, Florida in November, 2003.

(our first two days have been so full of promise that overnight this has become an expression of Carl's vision which is buttressed by the technical assistance of a dozen venerable teachers of whom Davin is the most present, thanks to you'all)
Naples 2003 Presentation

• a model of a business opportunity that might fit many of us including me

  data	processing
  source data, databases, inputs
  	my black box producing a wrapled nested array or "common data types"
  generic output
  	The Plain Vanilla Player & "thousands of C# programmers"
  presentation like they want it

• my challenges & strategic assumptions
  • we must handle complexity, the data must design the forms, not a programmer, here's what I deal with:
    • Software for Urban &/or Community Development
    • but, it, like all else can be dissassembled
      • Christopher Alexander, Architecture's Irascible Reformer
      • Tony Deering
  • Our world as system designers is NOT stable (the .net, apl, C# world).
  • My world in urban & community planning is stable (compared with the .net, apl, C# world).
    • A city 50 years from now is not going to look that much different from a city of today.
    • Planning structures will still deal with markets, entities, capital improvements, operating activity and financing.
    • Financing will deal with the time value of money and its negotiation will divvy up anything negotiable.
  • Many platforms are potentially important.
  • If I can focus on expressing relationships and values in enduring terms I'll be doing the right thing.
  • Writing drivers is the most underrated profession in America.
  • "Views" is a concept worth thinking about. Forms, tables and reports are all "views" with importance being given to some criteria. Criteria relate to:
    • Must it be interactive ?
    • How lovely must it be ?
    • How easily should it be designed and/or rendered ?

• The Phoenix Skeleton (Phoenix.w3) : The Windows MDI and all views, forms and reports are organized by a workspace we call Phoenix that was designed by Davin Church. While Phoenix is designed for the Windows environment, we use it with specifications that can also be rendered in a .net environment.

• The Plain Vanilla Player (e:\dv\pvplayer.w3) : pvPlayer is meant to be a high level reporting facility allowing users to achieve great power to create views (forms and reports) in a wide variety of applications and operating environments. This is the best illustration we have of utilities that can be rendered for either Windows or for a .net server. (www.devplan.com/pvmm/cloud/pvplayer.htm)
  • )xlaod e:\dv\pvplayer
  • Davin — execute this fn to address proper drive
  • pvRenderTest

• Gug (Gug.w3) : Gug is an example of an interactive form that be compiled either for use in Windows or on a .net server. It can also be rendered as a document by the Plain Vanilla Player using the same specifications used to render it as a form.

• Plain Vanilla ImageMan : "ImageMan" is a facility for handling labor intensive tasks that are ripe for batch processing in managing a large image library. It assumes that one has digital source art organized into subfolders and that the art is meant to be protected while webimages and thumbnails are created and presented with annotation. ImageMan has no provision for labor intensive tasks like image editing or hand annotation. Images are annotated from a database which can be maintained by non-technical persons. It might be useful to think of 3 different sorts of people handling images.
  • The hobbyist, the family photographer and the digital artist use Adobe Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro, Smart-Saver Pro, or Mark Osborne's facility.
  • Corbis and Bettman archives and the Federal Government have massive needs and massive budgets for handling millions of images.
  • I'm in between. I might be called a collector. I have thousands, so I need batch processing, volunteers and I need very easy to administer procedures.
  1. e:\dv\imgtools.w3 — execute "Davin" to address proper drive
     • SwimPix 'e:\Sydney2000\'

  2. e:\dv\imgindex.w3 — execute "Davin" to address proper drive
     • CreateIndexIndex 'e:\Sydney2000\'
     • CreateImageIndex 'e:\Sydney2000\' (executed alone or inside CreateIndexIndex)

  3. e:\imgdb.w3
     • Go

• discussion
  • the tradition of sharing and collaboration
  • www.pvmm.com/ (www.devplan.com/pvmm/) - an on-line help system

• files on the e:\drive

  e:\dv\PVPLAYER.w3	2,707,974	11/1/03 21:17:24
  e:\dv\IMGTOOLS.w3	666,538	11/1/03 20:24:49
  e:\dv\IMGINDEX.w3	2,306,154	11/1/03 20:19:15
  e:\dv\app\F4690.sf	227,980	11/1/03 20:07:59
  e:\dv\app\F4600.sf	8,264	11/1/03 18:07:48
  e:\imgdb.sf	6,030,124	11/1/03 16:53:03
  e:\dv\app\F4762.sf	729,376	10/23/03 21:30:23
  e:\dv\app\F4763.sf	729,376	10/23/03 21:30:23
  e:\dv\app\F4764.sf	720,968	10/23/03 21:30:23
  e:\dv\app\F4767.sf	673,776	10/23/03 21:30:22
  e:\dv\app\F4760.sf	492,916	10/20/03 20:15:56
  e:\dv\app\F4761.sf	145,288	10/20/03 20:15:56
  e:\dv\app\F4148.sf	143,044	10/20/03 20:15:55
  e:\dv\app\F4765.sf	42,556	10/19/03 14:33:58
  e:\IMGDB.w3	342,530	10/17/03 06:35:00
  e:\gsysvars.sf	138,928	10/15/03 21:22:33
  e:\dv\dv\gsysvars.sf	138,928	10/15/03 21:22:33
  e:\PHOENIX.w3	107,538	10/15/03 07:26:00
  e:\dv\dv\lsysvars.sf	17,756	10/13/03 15:40:28
  e:\dv\sys\F8136.sf	4,672	10/1/03 08:35:28
  e:\dv\dv\psysvars.sf	41,864	9/7/03 21:41:15
  e:\dv\app\f4438.sf	22,188	11/26/99 19:38:16
  e:\dv\sys\f8134.sf	5,224	5/29/97 07:57:52