R77 — R81

At last a revision that adds an embryonic usage of the mkm "program" as sketched on the mkmap "hack plan". Also a few updating and moving-around revisions supporting r77. (I began to despair for all documenting work of my ordinary life).

+Linx II

A few more astronomical links added: CDS archive database (CDSARC) at University in Strasbourg, a spectral types link to ESO, and a link to PostgreSQL.

AVM ≠ Web 2.0?

AVM is a metadata format to put in images allowing such metadata, for example JPEG, TIFF and PNG. It's then just a regime to add astronomically relevant metadata to such an image. The scope is infinitelly smaller than True Web 2.0 which requires a partially new Web representing editors, widgets, gadgets and an inbuilt self-parsing facility similar to XSLT. A real bummer so far...

Parsing

The mkmap program parsing is now half way implemented (r74): instead of trying to make the usual recursive descent parser I made a so called shallow parse meaning that only the superficial structure of the document is currently parsed (incorrectly) such as { } pairs, but in the functions intended for the exact future descent parse. I've formerly considered the technique of shallow parsing for a macro-style scan of C, fantasizing to add an object orientation system intermediate between C++ and Objective-C, doing away with the sick C++ virtual tables and the static methods as a default, while the same avoiding the weird Objective-C syntax.

VAMP ≈ Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is a hype based on wish thinking from technically non-knowledgeable commentors that have scratched the surface of web collaboration tools such as google doc, Wikipedia and other wikies. Discounting old and weak standards such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript (an oldish Scheme), there is need of some qualified data and metadata information transfer, and I suspect the VAMP Project might become a replacement of the Good Ole Web. The missing parts are the new browsers, replacing the old web browsers for being protectionistic and obstructing the development of web standards, foremost Gecko/Mozilla who systematically deviate, and Internet Explorer who systematically non-develops and claims "market standard" while not standardizing. To the hell with them! Throw out the old shit and make a new web!

The pilot applications sketched in the VAMP PDF:

• Museum AstroKiosk
• Planetarium Visualization
• Online Sky Navigation Software
• Desktop Planetarium Software
• Stellarium

The architecture requires an Astronomy Visualization Metadata (AVM) format and VAMP Server Databases.

I would suggest – in the long run – to consider enhancing the AVM and scope of interest to other sciences.

★ TODO: write an article at Citizendium (requires an account), or one at Wikipedia.

OpenSource

Using OpenSource repositories and an OpenSource blog, sternons is – as elsewhere stressed – an OpenSource project. That means that the program and all components of it are OpenSource, more specifically GNU LGPL (except the catalogues derived from Public Domain catalogues in publicly available data repositories). Keeping OpenSource and Public Domain where applicable is a compulsive holy moral instituted by God – the Golden Rule, valid in all major and most minor religions.

Added OpenSource licenses in revision 59 (and my copyright in rev 60 which is needed for preserving the copyleft). The development have been relatively down last week due to my administration and some tedious travelling.

When trying to get a clear view over what documentation licenses are used at CDS repository I found almost no information at all, except a few instructions about acknowledgements. The grand exception is the notorious NGC 2000.0 from Sky Publishing Corporation and some dubious notices in the NGC/IC Project making the copyright of the catalogue VII/239A dubious. To be avoided. Instead the NGC-related catalog to be used for "nebulae" is VII/1B (RNGC), which appears to be free.

+Linx I

Added some Astronomical links for:

1. general public inspiration,
2. mayhap collaborators,
3. "competitors" (this is OpenSource, competitors are really passive collaborators), "competition" is welcome, and "competitors" are welcome!
4. astronomy surfers

Feel free to propose additions!

Unit system

Programming languages in general don't deal with the units of the floating point values (real per old Algol terminology), f.ex. when there's an assignment such as

  a := 10.5;

there's no information whether 10.5 is km/h, mph, pixels, Volt or megaGauss. In astronomy there's a need to distinguish between radians, degrees, hours. Furthermore degrees could be expressed in degrees (°) and decimal degrees, or degrees (°), minutes (') and seconds (").

For sternons, I'll try to add units to numbers. The concept is so rare that it's seldomly heard of in programming languages. I don't know whether it is a viable alternative to types – it might be too complex when fully implemented – but some very important projects that failed could have been well served by a unit control implementation.

Revision 55.

Bad skin!!

Blää!

I have to remake the blog by changing the completely inflexible skin called "simple" by  Xxxx Xxxxxxxx . Q: What happens if one resizes the browser window? A: Nothing! Comment: a well designed skin – not an artful fashionably designed one (imagine a tone of strong disgust here) – changes its subwindow sizes when the browser window is resized! "Artful fashionable" trash means low-quality HTML and CSS obviously!

Not very good after modifying the skin to be resizable either: the main trouble is the current choice of red and blue nuances that are prob migrainic for anyone except the most extroverted persons.

Sternons

Sternons blog created. My programming blog is on Haccationes Rursi, but that one contains personal programming notes on everything, not on the sternons toolset. Also: it is written in Swedish in order to cultivate a Nerdish Swedish, which is not quite suitable for a programming product intended to be used internationally, unless the world — quite hypothetically but factually correct — decides that Swedish is the best language for the development of future science.