> The conversation is somewhat moot. It has taken a long time for
Cabrillo
> to
> become fully accepted and understood by contests everywhere. Since it
is
> accomplishing its mission, I don't see much motivation to go through
the
> process again.
>
The motivation is that there is something better out there that could
solve some of the problems with cabrillo. With one standard template
defined all logs for all contests and awards could be in the same
transportable format. No more discussion about what column has what
exchange info, or having to define a special format for any given
contest. Each contest organizer could then put out their specialized
template that would not only properly identify the log for their contest
entry classes, but would supply the validation lists for multipliers so
that logs would never be rejected for having unrecognized abbreviations
or missing data. Having this template would go a long way toward making
it possible for contest software developers to automate the creation of
new contests in their software.... if done properly a generic logging
program could read the template and configure itself to log for any
contest!
Its time to start the process now. Most new software tools now have xml
tools available that save the developer from having to do the parsing,
searching, building of documents, etc. all decent databases can import
and export xml. Think back, how long was the ct .all or .log file, or
the equivalent na or tr file the only way to submit electronic logs?
How many years did it take for cabrillo to get designed and accepted?
Why stop there, eventually cabrillo will look archaic (personally it
takes me back about 30 years to punching cards for submission at the
operators window).
In developing software there is always motivation to keep improving as
the available hardware and software tools improve! For the same reason
radios keep improving as new technology becomes available we should not
let our software fall behind the rest of the world, we should keep
pushing it ahead.
David Robbins K1TTT
e-mail: mailto:k1ttt@arrl.net
web: http://www.k1ttt.net
AR-Cluster node: 145.69MHz or telnet://dxc.k1ttt.net
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