[skaftij]

fred, on 2010-November-22, 15:55, said:

PaulG's post is right on the mark. There are (far) too many improvements to the existing software that we want to make (to say nothing of the various other new projects we are either working on or dreaming about) for there to be any sort of realistic hope that we will do any work on FD in the foreseeable future (which to me means about 1 year). The non-foreseeable future could well mean "forever" as far as FD development work is concerned (though it could also mean 1 year and 1 day). If and when we do work on FD again, I am guessing that we would start from scratch and attempt to design it properly in advance (yes, if this likely fantasy ever became reality, I am sure that we would make "FD - the sequel" compatible with existing FD files).

Probably the best hope of Michael's vision being realized in a polynomial timeframe would be for someone not associated with BBO to do all the work. Ideally this would involve creating a slick web-based module-aware version of the FD editor. If someone were to do this, if we liked the software, if there were no legal or business issues, and if it was not a nightmare for us to get the program in question to talk to BBO (probably that would involve little more than making sure the program could spit out well-formed files in FD's format that were less than 1MB), I am sure we would at least consider making an offer to purchase such a program.

In case I wasn't entirely clear about this: I am certainly not offering a job or any guarantees to progammers out there who might be inclined to undertake such a project. Anyone who chooses to get involved will be doing so entirely at their own risk.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

I value Fred'´s opinion highly. We use FD for training exercises and to document system but recognise that it does not have such a wide appeal. I have several ideas about how FD could catch on. How about one player proposing changes in system and the other player reviewing and accepting or making counter proposals? Or defining system interactively?
This would only entail changes in Bidedit to start with and thus not drain BBO for resources meant for other work.
Taking the vast number of programmers playing bridge into account, surely, development of Bidedit could be some sort of an open source project.

This post has been edited by skaftij: 2010-December-08, 14:40

[Kaapo]

Getting back to a remark made by mtvesuvius early on:

mtvesuvius, on 2010-November-05, 23:16, said:

An interesting topic that I would like as an operator occasionally, would be to load a pre-made FD card when Vugraphing for a pair. Having to option to do so might be a nice touch, and would make alerting some calls simpler (As well as provide a basic system outline for anyone who is curious). Not sure if it'd be practical to have, but for pairs who are on vugraph enough, with their permission, perhaps we could build FD cards.

I have saved an FD convention card labeled "vugraphe1_Steve-Rob" dated May 8 2007. It is for the Tarzan Club system played by Muller - de Wijs who were on Vugraph then. I think the operator was Rob Helle, who's pretty fluent in the sysytem and apparenlty has created the CC. Not sure if it's still possible for the operator to upload a CC. Must give it a try next time I'm doing it.