The Swarm SFI-Hive Pheromone Volume III Issue 2

[glen e. p. ropella]

                     The Swarm SFI-Hive Pheromone
                          Volume 3, Issue 2
                             Oct 29, 1997


   The Pheromone will stand to inform users of the activities and
goals of the hive and user community.  Contributions are accepted that
announce Swarm-related events or activities in any of the growing
Swarm colonies around the world.  To contribute, send e-mail to
address@hidden  The Pheromone is mailed out on Tuesday (or....
maybe Wednesday) if and only if there is information to be
disseminated.

Table of Contents
-----------------

   I. New Hive Members
  II. New SwarmDocs
 III. New Stuff from the Users
      A. Graph 0.2
  IV. Java GUI Progress Report
   V. Charging Toward 1.0.4
  VI. Contract with Net Community

========================================================================

   I. New Hive Members

      Three new agents have just migrated to the SFI Hive: Irene Lee,
Marcus Daniels, and Alex Lancaster.  Irene will take the position as
the Organizational Manager for the Swarm Development Project (SDP)
here at SFI.  She will manage the incubation of the newly laid egg
that is the Swarm Development Group (SDG).  Marcus is the new Kernel
programmer and will bring to fruition all the wonderful enhancements
to the kernel we've been talking about for so long.  And Alex is our
new Library programmer who will expand the usability and feature set
for Swarm.

      The three of them come from various technical backgrounds and
bring with them a complementary suite of skills that should provide a
very stable foundation for the SDP.  As some of the dust settles here,
you will begin to see them foraging about in user space.

  II. New SwarmDocs

      I have finally managed to finish slapping together the SwarmDocs
to go with the most recent release.  SwarmDocs 1.0.3 documents,
amazingly enough, Swarm 1.0.3.  I've updated some broken links and
small details here and there.  The major differences are, again, in
the Random library.  Take a look and send me <address@hidden> a note
about any errors.

 III. New Stuff from the Users

      A. Graph 0.2

      Manor Askenazi updated his Graph library and passed it back into
the user community.  It has some extra bells and whistles and there's
even a new Graph Demo.  The one caveat is that the file
tkobjc/NodeItem.m must be replaced by the one he provides.
Unfortunately, Manor is off on military duty and will probably not be
able to maintain it for awhile.  So, if there's anybody out there in
the user community who has the itch to complete it as a full graph
library or just maintain it, please let us know <address@hidden>.

  IV. Java GUI Progress Report

      The Java GUI project is progressing.  We don't expect to have it
by the end of October, however.  Our schedule has now slipped to about
mid-November.  This is, in part, due to the necessary redesign of the
control mechanism in Swarm, the limited access to machines with
Windows NT/95, and the extra hoops we have to jump through to get Java
and ObjC communicating.  We have heatbugs running with a standard
Swarm-style control panel, a raster for the 2d space, and a time
series data widget, on Windows NT.  The remaining tasks are: histogram
and canvas widgets, probes, installation, and testing on Unix
platforms.

   V. Charging Toward 1.0.4

      With the incorporation of the Java GUI, some of the code in
Swarm will need to be rearranged a little bit.  We're going to package
up a release (1.0.4) in anticipation of that need.  It will also serve
to gather some of the left-overs that didn't make it into 1.0.3, like
Ken's additions to InFile and ObjectLoader and XColorMap, Manor's mods
to NodeItem.m, and Sven's AppendFile and reverse QSort.

      The basics of the rearrangement are just to change a filename
conflict between swarmobject.h and SwarmObject.h for the Micro$oft
world, convert to the new control scheme, and bring some of the errant
libraries into conformance with our library interface conventions.

  VI. Contract with Net Community

      SFI, in representation of the SDG (until the SDG has a legal
identity of its own), has entered into an agreement with Net Community
in Portland, OR for basic logistic support for the maintenance of
Swarm.  They will be able to help us with the mailing lists, web site,
archiving, ftp, source code control, and, in particular, Objective-C.
This relationship could even lead to published CD-ROMs and
professional documentation!

      Scott Christley has been our main contact thus far.  He has been
on the mailing list for a long time and is aware of Swarm's history,
intended audience, and long-term goals.

                              =========

The Swarm Pheromone is created by the members of the Swarm project at
the Santa Fe Institute.  For more information on the Swarm Project,
see http://www.santafe.edu/projects/swarm.  Comments, corrections, and
contributions should be sent to address@hidden
-- 
{glen e. p. ropella <address@hidden> |  Send lawyers, guns, and money!  }
{Hive Drone, SFI Swarm Project         |            Hail Eris!            }
{http://www.trail.com/~gepr/home.html  |               =><=               }