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minutes-20010115.txt
Minutes of meeting 15/01/2001 @ 2pm
Location: UKC Computer Science Meeting Room
Present: ab11, ajm4, pjm2, tdb1
Absent: None
The meeting started with a review of the clients. Everyone
was impressed with the status of them. Work is to continue
over the next week or so to complete them.
The issue of the server locking up was to be addressed.
However, in testing during the meeting it was decided that
it was a problem in the ClientInterface - an issue which is
still being resolved. Further investigation was put off
until this has been completed.
Data to be grabbed was discussed. This is becoming an
important issue as the clients are requiring more precise
details. It was decided the the "grabbing" part of the host
should be seperated, for now, from the main program. A Perl
program will be written which will parse output from various
system commands (which ports for different OS's) and output
it in ascii for use by the host application. This will also
aid porting of the host into C++, which is continuing. It is
hoped that this "grabbing" code will be moved to C++
eventually, but this is a good stop gap, and will also work
well if moving to C++ cannot be completed.
The group expressed concern on the progress of the host
application. With work moving fast on the client side a
solid and reliable host was required. The current host is
unpredictable and can crash unexpectedly. These issues are
being addressed. The group also requested that the server be
"completed" for a release soon, allowing it to be left
running on Killigrew[1] for host and client testing.
Another issued raised was the client to server protocol. A
protocol needs to be clearly defined to make server and
client development easier. AJ & Tim discussed this and will
produce a spec soon.
Tim raised the issue of Makefiles. The server benefits
greatly from some extended Makefiles, and the other
components could use some basic ones to allow quick & easier
building. This will be looked into.
Finally, it became apparent that the util package of the
server contains code required in the clients. It was agreed
that this package should be available seperately in a JAR
file for use in the clients. Tim agreed to do this,
arranging Makefiles and changing code to remove dependencies
with the rest of the server.
The next meeting will be on Monday afternoon at the usual
time. The meeting room is booked 2pm to 5pm.
[1] - Killigrew is a FreeBSD machine made available by Tim.
Continued use is not guaranteed, but it does provide
the group with a "shared" user for running the server.
This makes stopping/starting/controlling the server
possible by anyone in the group - something not
available to us on Raptor.
