I'll just jot down here those thoughts that occur when working on Textual DXiner, Visual DXiner and SGI Generators.

There's nothing outstanding here. Most of my stuff is naive. Revisiting oldschool notions.

I do stuff I find is really amazing to find the rest of the world had it 10 years ago! That's the story of my life such as it is. I make an exerted effort to not stand on the shoulders of giants.

A classic example being ... I had "intellesense" in a previous version of Visual DXiner back in 2006 ... but because I didn't get around to finishing the project, it didn't get out there ... 11 years has gone by and I still haven't finished it. Nowadays, even your simple text editor is crap because you doesn't have it!

The world moves on ... and I don't have the time or the energy to move with it.

I was the original Betamax man. Betamax was a far superior system to VHS ... but the world went VHS. I loved HD-DVD ... which was the simpler, more robust system that didn't have a "regioning" system, it arrived on the market earlier and when Blu-Ray came out the software was MUCH superior. The world went Blu-Ray!

In software too ... UML, the UNIVERSAL modelling language, an overly complex description system that models everything (including the kitchen sink) has taken off. What's needed is a simpler, more consistent, more consice and convenient software oriented modelling system. But the world is too UML crazy to care that I have one. Because of the effort involved, those that know anything about it become to snobby to look at anything else.

The lines I hear the most must be ...

• "You don't have this! UML does!", 
• "I can't be bothered with it, it's not UML!",
• "Why didn't you write UML instead?"
• "Why don't you just use ... Eclipse/Enterprise? Architect/Whizzo?-Tool?"
• "What's the point in writing another unheard of design tool?"

There are no satisfactory answers to these questions/statements. Those who have never created something more complex or mind taxing than paper hat, on their own initiative really can't comment (and that means not paid for by work or told to do it or doing it because it gets you laid,) however they seem to think that it's OK telling you where you're going wrong and what you should do is and really aren't prepared to walk even a yard in your intellectual shoes.

Enjoy what's here. I spent many happy hour doing it. I'm sure that you too could benefit from it, even as an example of how NOT to do it. I also spent many frustrated hour too, because though this is a great project, I can't make enough money from it to live.

C'est la vie.

Archibald