[Xastir-dev] Topic: Functional Requirements, Xastir-NG

[Gerry Creager]

Magne Mæhre wrote:
> I've been reading the recent xastir-ng threads with some interest, and
> while the programming language, programming paradigms and supported
> platforms are interesting questions, I guess the functional
> (and non-functional) requirements should be determined first !?

Woohoo!  A systems approach!  Cool!

Yes, a set of functional requirements should be posted and discussed. 
Again.  Over the years, often in what turned into private discussion 
groups rather than via the lists (because it ended up as 2-3 folks doing 
all the discussion) we've beaten on this.  Hence, some of the decisions 
("I want to use PostGIS") have evolved.  That said, I think all these 
previous discussions and decisions should be reopened and back on the table.

> What are we trying to accomplish,  why isn't Xastir good enough?
> Are we looking out for handling more and different protocols
> (AIS, Mode-S ES, ...) ?   Do we want to support an instance without
> a GUI (for serving objects, alerts, message handling) ?  Do we
> want to support small devices (how small?  PDAs, phones, AVR, PIC) ?
> Do we want to have possibility for different GUIs, or is a single
> GUI like the current good enough?   What are the operations we would
> like to perform in the GUI (as users) ?

Why isn't Xastir good enough?
not really portable beyond *nix save with interoperability layers 
(Cygwin) or VMs.  That's a limitation to world domination.

Different protocols...
Yeah, we should discuss these.  My favorites would include two from the 
OpenGeospatial Consortium:  Open Location Services and Sensor 
Observation Service, for positioning and e.g., weather or telemetry 
observations respectively.  As a pilot, Mode-s ES (or anything) sounds 
good.  AIS would be good practice, it seems.  Native PACTOR?  Voice over IP?

Server instance?
Absolutely.

Hardware?
PDA would be cute.  Small, embedded systems? Yeah.  Regular PCs? Of course.

GUIs?
Curt's addressed this already but, I see no reason we can't post an 
interface spec and let GUI developers play as they will.  So: yes, 
multiple GUIs would be good but we might not have to develop them all. 
Maybe just a reference implementation.

Operations in the GUI?
I'm a command line guy, and don't know how to design GUIs.  That's for 
more talented folks.

> I haven't really been more involved with xastir other than as a user
> for many years, and submitter of a very small number of patches, but I
> am interested in helping here..

Now's the time!  Welcome!

gerry
-- 
Gerry Creager -- gerry.creager at tamu.edu
Texas Mesonet -- AATLT, Texas A&M University	
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