Development
Everything technical you wanted to know - but were afraid to ask about. This is my little corner of the world of development (and in some cases research too). Here are some of the things I am involved in, enjoy or find just plain useful:
- Autonomous Agents
- Component-Based Software Engineering
- SPICE (ISO15504)
- Internationalisation and Localisation
- Java
- Game Development
Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agents
This is one part of my site that I do hope becomes quite major. You see, my thesis work is to do with the engineering of software for agents. What is an agent? Well, for now think of it as a robot. For those of you that do know what an agent is, yes the last statement is far from the truth of what an agent really is or can be, but for the moment the quick simple description will suffice.
Over time, this section and the section on components will have an additional page each devoted to their respective subjects. I will also begin a journal/diary of the papers that I have read, my thoughts on them (apologies to the authors...), and where you can obtain them so you can read them yourself.
Component Based Software Engineering
A very good way to develop software - You see, my research is to do with agents, however the building block I will use is the component. A component is just that - think of it as a lego brick. As I start to read more papers, I'll put up what other people have to say. I may even put some stuff up from my last thesis (especially my definition of a component - I thought it was cool :) ).
SPICE (ISO15504)
Software Process Improvement and Capability dEtermination or SPICE, is an international standard for assessing the capability of an organisation to produce software and determine where they can improve themselves. Some resources you should really check out if you're wanting to know more about software processes and quality improvement:
- SUGAR - the SPICE user's group.
Sign up for membership, and download the draft standard
- Software Quality Institute - A fantastic place to learn more about software quality
for those of you who know about ISO9000, SPICE complements this quality standard in your organisation. Another related Standard is ISO12207 - Software Lifecycle Processes.
Now you're probably asking "Hey Acid, the Acronym is all wrong! It should be SPICD!". Well, apart from sounding dumb there's a good reason it's called SPICE: When it was first released the Acronym was actually Software Process Improvement and Capability Evaluation, but there was a bit of a discussion with the French SPICE people who said it was better to say Determination. So it was changed. But and I quote Ms Angela Tuffley, Coordinator fot the SPICE trials for the South-Pacific Region (sorry to take your name in vain Angela...): "We weren't gonna change that acronym for anybody". Thus with a little massaging you have SPICE rather than SPICD.
Internationalisation and Localisation
Internationalisation (i18n) is the process of developing software that is not locale-specific; that is, software that can be easily translated into another language. This includes things like date-formats, currency and even images that may be culturally sensitive.
Localisation (i10n) is the process of converting internationalised software and making it locale-specific (eg. English Windows, and Chinese (Simplified) Windows are two examples of localised versions of Microsoft Windows.
Stop by Worldlingo.com and have a look at some of the neat stuff they do.
This is a subject I don't have much to with any more, but I've done a lot in this area: from assessing i18n and l10n software (Corel Catalyst, Loc@le, SDLX) through making html, text and rtf parsers that were fully Unicode an multi-codepage aware.
Java
while (Dan.isLazy() == true) {
System.out.println("more coming soon");
}
Ugh! yes I know that was bad... Ok ok! REALLY bad...
Game Development
Nothing here yet, but check out Flipcode.com for game development stuff, and check out a game made by a friend of mine called WinBolo (and LinBolo).
