YDS system
Wednesday, April 27, 2005, 15:28 - Yacht Design
I've chosen to use Java along with swing for my yacht design system.

The method is to first have my yacht design system be a simple preliminary design tool. The system will have modules which make up different portions of the tool (such as parametric design, buoyancy, resistance, scantlings, etc)...

Anyway, work is beginning on the system as a whole. The problem is that I need to translate some of my C++ hull design code to java...

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Boat database
Tuesday, April 26, 2005, 16:07 - Yacht Design
The first portion of my yacht design system is based on parametric analysis. Because of parametric analysis, I need to have a database of boats. I have developed an XML format for this fleet.

An example is shown below. Also note that an xml document makes it very simple to incorporate units, or any other data in the form of tagged objects.

So anyway, for a database of boats, this is an example of using XML for storage: 


<?xml version="1.0"?>

<fleet name="My sample fleet">

  <boat id="0001">

    <name>My example boat</name>

    <designer>Jon P. Silverberg</designer>

    <LWL units="ft">35</LWL>

    <BWL units="ft">10</BWL>

    <LCB units="%aftSTN5">2.5</LCB>

    <PHRF_rating>238</PHRF_rating>

    etc...

  </boat>

  <boat id="0002">

    <name>My second boat example</name>

    etc...

  </boat>

  etc...

</fleet>


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Technology Content
Tuesday, April 26, 2005, 15:59 - Technology
In terms of technology, I am making progress currently in the area of XML.

I have a code written in Python which will transform a spreadsheet (tab delimitted) into an XML document. I have incorporated it's use with matplotlib, a code for python which produces many nice plots.

XML provides major advantages over any other data storage languages. First, XML is human readable, and does not change with the versioning. However, the philosophical advantage is that the datafile holds only the content - not information on how to display it. The display and use of the content is kept in separate files.

I personally feel that the problem with excel is that emphasizes the display of data over the data itself. Instead, by using a technology which emphasizes content, I believe it is easier to work with the data.

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