[UK-CONTEST] Contest software development

[Andy Swiffin]

>>> On 28/06/2007 at 12:31, in message
<002001c7b978$47b72ef0$0201a8c0 at paul>, "Paul
O'Kane" <pokane at ei5di.com> wrote:

> Tell me what extra you want/need (apart from packet and
> networking!) and I'll do it.  

RTTY and PSK31?


One thing I really don't like about N1MM is the way they've gone and
blurred the distinction between the program and the data.  What I mean
is that IMHO its not good practice to hard code all the contest
information into the actual code.   What I believe they should have done
is extract all of the posssible contest configuration parameters and
then each different contest would be a configuration file, in this way
when a new or different contest comes along its  just a matter of
creating a new configuration file for it rather than having to release a
whole new version of the base code.   From an  analysis of all the
current contests you should be able to extract a model of the basic
types and their parameters which you then customise - come to think of
it, a bit like Paul has done in SD :-)    I accept that every now and
again you'll find someone throws in the unexpected which will mean a
base code update but most new or changed contests would be accomodated
with a config data file change.   There's nothing wrong with having
quite complex logic in the config file to the extent that you even need
a separate configurator to build it (Some XML configs I deal with for
work have that), just provided that the base code and the "data" are
kept separate!

Still -my prejudice doesn't stop me using N1MM most of the time (what
little I get to the radio these days).

73
Andy
gm8oeg