Welcome to the FreeAlgView project

Welcome to the official blog about the FreeAlgView project. This isn't really the first welcome, but it just the first welcome in this FreeAlgView revival (the first FreeAlgView development was neglected due to lack of time). This project is actually my final degree project and it is enrolled in the VII Concurso Universitario De Software Libre [1].

Description of FreeAlgView

FreeAlgView means a "Free Algorithm Viewer", and its complete description is:

A libre and learning-oriented algorithm animation application

Functionally spoken, FreeAlgView is a "animator of algorithms". The purpose of FreeAlgView is to make easier to understand algorithms and thus to improve the learning process. It will be contain whichever feature that makes easier to understand an algorithm: execution step-by-step, to hide superfluous variables, and so on. FreeAlgView is open to anybody who wants to learn algorithms, but I will initially focus my attention on the university community (students and professors in computer science/engineering) .

Those algorithms have to be written in a interpreted programming language designed "de facto" for FreeAlgView. FreeAlgView reads an algorithm (written in this language) and its animation configuration (feature dont designed yet) and it just animates the algorithm evolution. In absence of user configuration, a default animation is chosen.

This programming language is intended for human reading, but not just a pseudocode language, because of pseudocode languages are closer to natural languages but not designed to be processed by computers (and thus, more difficult to design parsers for it).

FreeAlgView project and FreeAlgView application

Unlike the old develop (July-November 2011), the project will be now formally executed by project management issues (a personal challenge). Specifically, it will be achieved following the PMBOK Guide recommendations. The project has a duration of five months (148 days), starting at 21th October 2012 (two days ago) and finishing at 20th March 2013, whose outcome will be the FreeAlgView application. The event launching officially the project is the FreeAlgView project charter, that anybody can get just below the blog title. This document specifies definitions, purposes, a preliminary timeline, requirements, and so on, providing a complete project definition. The other links related to this project can be found at the top of the blog, in the section (widget) FreeAlgView links (also in the project charter itself, together with a description, in section 8). This blog will be the official communication tool of the project during this time.

In the project management context, it is necessary to make a clear distinction between project and software:

• Project "A project is a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product, service or result". That implies a project has a defined period of time: a defined beginning and a defined end; and of course a defined outcome.
• Software In the other hand, software is a entity which life cycle ends when nobody use it. It doesn't have thus a defined end and strictly spoken it is nor temporary (at most temporal, as opposed to eternal, but not just temporary).

Therefore, saying "project" to refer to "software" or anything else not according to this definition, for example, "the Firefox project", is incorrect in this context. The "Firefox project" is really a continuous effort over an application (the web browser Firefox) without a defined end, and if you want to refer to "what firefox (community) is doing" or "what firefox want to do", really you want to refer to the "Firefox purpose", to the "Firefox effort" or to the "Firefox mission". In other cases, with "Firefox project" people want to say "Firefox development" or just "Firefox (software)".

However I make here a proper use of this terms and when I say "project" I say this temporary five-months effort undertaken to create FreeAlgView (application); and when I say just "FreeAlgView" I want to refer only to the application itself.

Alles klar? :)

Viele Grüße,
Peregring-lk

[1] A free software university Spanish contest.