Plans for the next month.

We have no intentions of working on the core nexus code until roughly this time next month.

In the meantime, both myself and Tim are working on prototype programs for various subparts of nexus (client-server, code completion, bazaar integration, remote file management, syntax highlighting, etc). These prototypes are written as throwaway code, so that design overheads are kept to a minimum.
This allows us to try out ideas and test different ways to accomplish certain tasks.

In roughly one month, we intend on reviewing the prototypes to determine what works and what does not. At this point we will take everything we learnt to design the first version of nexus. Most of the code will be rewritten, but the prototype code will be there as a reference, so development should be much quicker. From here on, all code will be unit tested and code review and refactoring will be done as regularly as our free time allows us to.

Check back in a month ;-)

Update

Firstly, the Google Code repository is not quite up to date.. we are slowly moving the project to launchpad.net though eventually I intend on keeping the Google Code repository in sync with the launchpad one.. maybe..

Secondly, both myself and Tim are, unfortunately, finding it hard to dedicate time to this project, so development is going extremely slowly. Hopefully during the summer we will start making headway.

And Finally, we have decided to refactor our existing codebase. We will take a more XP approach to developing Nexus in the hope that it will enable us to release working versions more often. I guess this means that now I get to redesign Nexus to be more unit testing friendly ;-)

Beginnings

I guess to begin with, we need to figure out the design of the Nexus client. Currently, I'm just hacking away at it trying to learn Gtk and Scintilla. Soon the code will need refactoring and I'd feel much better if I had a decent design to work off. We have a few ideas, but more prototyping is needed. I'd much rather get the design right first time round, rather than having to rewrite later.

The main task right now is to implement a network layer which sends Scintilla edit commands to the server and sends commands recieved from the server to Scintilla, so that the code widget can update itself. Of course, there is no server written yet either... ;-) One thing at a time though.

It's alive!

Finally! I've always been meaning to set up a blog for nexus-ed since we've started it (again). - So this is it :-) Yay!

Anyways, it's now going to be written in python (my first python project!!!), using GTK+ and Scintilla. Hopefully we'll have version 0.1 released by the end of February. It hard to find time to work at it between college exams and finishing off some previous projects and finding time to spend with a girl I just don't see enough of at the moment.

Nexus-Ed(nexus) is being developed on Ubuntu and aims to be a tool (code editor) made especially for remote pair programming. I know the likes of gobby exist, but it's not specific enough for remote pair programming, as well as the lack of an undo command. Nexus should work in a similar fashion to gobby, except that it will also support opening files located on a server, or on either the remote developers computer or your local machine, unlike gobby where each user keeps a copy of the file. Ideally, the server will be used for storage as its centrally accessible to all users then. Version 0.1 will be an unpolished initial release, supporting only the opening and saving of files on the server.

Integrating subversion and bazaar is also something we'd like to do, but that's only an idea and it's a long way off. So, beyond the basics of scintillas syntax highlighting, don't expect too much.

You'll find nexus currently hosted on Google Code. Only source code available at present though - downloads/debs/rpms will hopefully be made with the first release :-P