[Pipet Devel] Offer to help

[J.W. Bizzaro]

Hey Steve.  Thanks for writing, and thanks for offering to help.

> COFFMAN Steven wrote:
> 
>     I'd like to help out if possible. I'm a commiter on Apache's XML project
> (FOP mostly), so I know Java, PDF, XML, XSL:T, XSL:FO and other fun
> acronyms. I don't know python, but I've been meaning to learn it anyway.
> It's been a while since I used C++. I wrote java stuff using CORBA when the
> first java bindings were available, but never in C++, and way before GNOME.

We'll, we REEEEEEALY need some help in the Definitions Layer of Piper.  That's
the layer in the Build-Time Subsystem that turns the user-described networks
(the "view") into a network description (the "model") that the Run-Time
Subsystem can understand.  It is in Python, but it uses CORBA and XML more
heavily than any other part of Piper.

If you're interested, I can have Brad get in touch with you.

> I'd like to help in whatever way, but I have a an idea for taking two XML
> files (and DTDs) and using them figure out what a generic XSL:T file would
> be to translate between the two, so you can edit one and XSL:T it to the
> other. I've got some scripts that do a half-way decent job of that now. I
> dunno if that would be helpful to Piper, but I thought I'd offer.

Actually, XML translations, in fact all kinds of data translation facilities,
will be important to Piper.  Remember that we are tying together pre-existing
programs that were not made to work with each other.  For many of these, there
may be an intermediate conversion or filtering step.  But, those will be nodes
or plugins that can be made later.

> So basically "I'm a clueless newbie that should be able to figure things out
> reasonably fast". :) What would you like me to do?

If you can help with the DL, you'd save the day.  Python is really easy to
pick up, trust me.

Otherwise, Jean-Marc and Jarl, if you need Steve's help more than I do, let me
know.

> P.S. The graphical pipe concept is the most fascinating part to me. The
> distributed network stuff is cool too, but not as exciting.

Hear that Jarl?  My stuff is more exciting than yours :-P

Seriously, the DL works closely with all of the user interfaces (UIL), so
you'll get to work on graphical piping and on other UI's as well.

Cheers.
Jeff
-- 
J.W. Bizzaro                                           jeff at bioinformatics.org
Director, Bioinformatics.org: The Open Lab     http://bioinformatics.org/~jeff
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."
               -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
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