This is a menu of the topics on this page (click on any):
Useful assumptions, concepts and terms   
The Premise   
Use of the PVMM for Development Planning   .

Useful assumptions, concepts and terms

The frame of reference of this paper is not language or platform specific. While for convenience we may use terms that have very specific meaning, the meaning for this paper is always the general conceptual meaning. For example, an MDI form is a Windows concept wherein an application is presented with a two-tiered menu structure. In Excel, the "first level children" are "File, Edit, View, Insert, Format, Tools, Data, Window, Help". Each presents the next level of the menu with what we'll call "second level children". While our language is Windows specific, conceptually this idea can work on any platform and in any language. Whatever adaptations make sense so that the user's approach is "non-linear" or "event driven" are assumed within our meaning.

If the functionality of an application can be separated from its user interface, the ideas in this paper are more relevent. If the user interface is so intertwined with the functionality that they cannot be separated, then this paper is less relevant. We do not come from the school that says "the medium is the message".

The format of this paper is that it will be developed as the home page of a website. The ideas that inspire it, expand on it or that provide documentation of the approach will be presented as additional pages in the website. In addition, a demo is being prepared providing availability on a CD (pending agreement from others whose proprietary software will hopefully be included).

The Premise

We believe that object oriented achievements by contemporary software developers combined with certain disciplines make rapid application development possible at a remarkable level. We are developing an approach we call QScript whereby functions and forms can be described in terms of their desired functionality with the ability to then render the idea in any of several platforms including Windows and the world wide web. This approach builds upon many efforts; some are quite far along; some haven't begun. So, some paths for commercial use of these ideas are closer to reality than other paths.

Use of the PVMM for Development Planning

How do we put the Plain Vanilla Magical Machine (PVMM) to work in the "Dot Net Strategy" from Microsoft. What discipline is needed and how do we do make the conversion procedure work from today's code.

The Plain Vanilla Magical Machine at this time has three parts as follows:

1. The first part is two black boxes called Landev and Procash which have (almost) no user i/o. A major principle of this part is that a very complex database is organized by hard drive folders. We intend that each folder can have an exceptional variety of information, essentially anything that can be on a website.
2. The second part is a black box (with a very thin client) which is the means by which the hard drive folders are organized, accessed, processed, displayed and made available for database access.
3. The 3 black boxes above are all driven by parameters on Colossal Files. The data on these files is hoped to be managed by a facility built on TExcel5.
4. The following are caveats to be kept in mind while considering if Net Access 2.0 can do the job (assuming, of course, that there is some good sense by which the 3 black boxes are written).

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