@@ -1,24 +1,18 @@-The platform we are choosing
to use is
the Java 1.3 (possibly 1.4) system
and language
. This gives us the greatest flexibility for
target platforms,
and with recent advances
in GUI interfaces for Java,
we predict that the performance will not be a factor
. The following potential constraints exist for this chosen platform
:
+After attempting
to use Java Swing to develop
the Obversive GUI,
and running into problems with R as a backend, we decided to move to C++ and several cross platform toolkits for our development platform
. We have successfully compiled Obversive on all of our
target platforms and have had success
in implementing many of the features
we required
. Our initial set of targets are
:
-1. The Swing API
, while portable
, can be slow
and hard to understand.
-2. The look changes for each target platform, so tests must be run to verify that the application works for each target.
-3. The performance of Java can be too slow for some operations. We'll have to measure the interface performance as we go to make sure that it works well enough for users.
-4. Installation
on some systems can be difficult for Java programs. We'll have to look into different installers.
+* Windows 98
,2000
, and XP on Intel x86
+* Linux on Intel x86 (possibly other forms which support X-Windows and GCC/G++)
+* Macintosh OS X
on PPC (using the Apple X-Windows or XDarwin system)
-In addition to Java
, we are targeting the following Operating System
platforms:
-
-* Windows 98,2000, and XP on Intel x86
-* Linux on Index x86
-* Macintosh OS X on PPC
+Each of these platforms are supported by our development toolset
, and
we are investigating cross compilation techniques to target additional
platforms.
-These platforms all have fairly stable Java implementations and have desktop style applications written in Java already.
!!!Specific Hardware Requirements
-We are targetting a fairly robust machine at first due to
the "bloated" nature
of Java
. Several other applications, such as jEdit (http://www.jedit.org) prove that it
is very possible to write responsive
and attractive interfaces using Java
. At first we will assume a fast configuration, and then--once
the system is stable--strive to make it run
on less enabled machines
. The configuration we are targetting initially is:
+Our testing has shown that
the current build
of ObveRsive will actually support fairly small platforms
. The only real limitation
is the availability of R on each platform,
and whether the user's machine can handle the processing required by R
. We have reduced
the RAM requirements based
on this testing, but have left the other requirements in place
.
* A system with a graphical input device and a mouse pointer. Notice this rules out any "Blind Adaptive" interfaces.
* At least a 800Mhz Intel or 600Mhz PPC processor.
-* 256MB
of RAM minimum.
+* 128MB
of RAM minimum.
* Disk space is not an issue these days, but at least a 1G drive (can you even install Windows on a 1G?)
* No sound card required.
