MEETING NOTES Followup, August 14, 2001: Nathan's Email
Johanna et alia,
Just wanted to respond to one portion of the meeting minutes.
Regarding the use of a web browser as our platform, I'd like to make clear that I don't feel that the diagramming you and Jerry did is as tough to realize inside of a browser as the minutes seemed to imply. I simply wanted to say that, first and foremost, we should all be aware that use of the browser platform --does-- place some limitations on us, especially with regard to graphical capabilities. While DHTML can do some powerful things, many of these things can only be achieved in Internet Explorer versions 4 and above, some other things only in IE 5 and above. And even in IE 5, DHTML does not provide the layout flexibility of, say, the Java Swing or the Java AWT layout engines (which could be leveraged inside of a standalone app or an applet). This has implications --primarily-- for the game play diagram, but could also affect, for example, our source text rendering options. However, we can't go about saying precisely what these implications might be until we have a specific, complete, and definitive picture of what we want from, for example, the game play diagram.
One thing that the public, in-person, development of a task model can accomplish is the exposure of the assumptions/goals of the creators to the specific technical experience of the developers and vice versa, thereby making more explicit the ways in which the use of the browser may impinge on the project vision. The result of this process will hopefully be a more specific set of project expectations and an alignment in understanding of goals/priorities between all parties.
Cheers, Nathan