PSPP conference call notes.

[John Darrington]

Many thanks to Ben and Jason for the conference call yesterday.  It
was great to speak to both of you.  Here are the things which I took
away from the conversation:


GUI 
=== 

So it seems that the next release will feature the GUI.  Thinking
about it last night, I'm of the opinion that, in its first public
appearance, it should favour stability rather than features.

So I propose that it be released as a "System/Portable file editor".
Getting it to actually run procedures is another ball game, which can
start after the next release.

On this basis, I think that the end of 2006 is a reasonable release
date to aim for.


Marketing
=========

The web site should be rewritten to be a bit more hard hitting.  It
should emphasise the things that PSPP does well.  Eg: Unlimited cases
and variables, very fast processing, regression, anova, long string
lengths, absence of time bombs etc.


Output Subsystem
================

Intermediate format such as HDLF for output would be nice.  It would
be essential if the GUI is to have interactive "pivot tables".

Caching/Saving of Models
========================

This would make the syntax a lot more powerful (and faster) if done
properly.


RAD framework
=============

Some kind of framework to make development easier for statisticians
who know only a modicum of programming.  As I see it there are three
aspects to this:

1. Something to build the syntax parser.  I suppose q2c was supposed to
   do that, but we're all aware of it's limitations.

2. Something to build the output tables.  A glade type application
   springs to mind.  But it would be a lot of work to do.

3. An easy way to access the raw data, without being exposed to the
   internals of casefiles etc.


J'

-- 
PGP Public key ID: 1024D/2DE827B3 
fingerprint = 8797 A26D 0854 2EAB 0285  A290 8A67 719C 2DE8 27B3
See http://pgp.mit.edu or any PGP keyserver for public key.

signature.asc
Description: Digital signature