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Fenfire (formerly Gzz (formerly GZigZag)) project milestones |
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|
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.. very much incomplete - please add stuff questions: |
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|
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- when did Janne change from cellular automata |
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- when were the name changes |
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|
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This document contains the most important events in the project's history. |
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It's intended to be *honest*, so it does contain several of the mistakes we made. |
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When reading, please remember that most such documents would only explain |
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the positive aspects. |
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|
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1999 |
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==== |
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|
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After returning to Finland from his Junior Fellowship at Harvard |
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University, USA, Tuomas reads Ted's talk about ZigZag. Something clicks: |
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Tuomas notices this this system would be very close to several things |
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he's been longing for in his computer use. |
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|
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He contacts Ted Nelson and after some emails, they agree that Tuomas |
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can develop a free version, if Ted gets to do his "director's cut". |
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|
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The project starts as a work project for some students, Vesa Parkkinen |
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and Heikki Maaranen, as a C++ version using Gtk for graphics. |
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|
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2000 |
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==== |
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|
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Spring: |
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------- |
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|
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For portability and ease of programming (garbage collection &c) the Java |
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version is started by Tuomas. The work project finishes. |
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|
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The first version of libvob (called Flobs) is created. |
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|
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Summer: |
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------- |
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|
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funded by Sonera, Antti-Juhani Kaijanaho (student at Jyväskylä) and |
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Tuukka Hastrup (high school student in Helsinki) join the project. |
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|
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Asko Soukka hears about ZZ from Tuukka Hastrup. |
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|
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Benja Fallenstein also joins, using his own time (as a college student |
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in Germany). |
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|
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Zobs: Java objects whose fields are read from the zzStructure |
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are developed to help coding. |
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|
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AJ is developing the first cellular language. |
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|
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Tuomas works a lot on versioning, solving some of the issues with versioning |
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ZZ-like sequences. |
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|
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Fall: |
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----- |
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|
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Rauli Ruohonen, a CS student at Helsinki University |
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|
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2001 |
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==== |
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|
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Spring: |
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------- |
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|
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Tero Mäyränen (local student) and Katariina Ervasti (a graduated humanist from Vaasa) |
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join the project. |
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|
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Tuomas is ??? weeks on sick leave. |
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|
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Summer: |
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------- |
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|
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Tuomas, Tuukka, Benja, Kimmo, (anyone else?) give presentations at the ZigZag workshop |
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at the HyperText'01 conference. |
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|
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Fall: |
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----- |
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|
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Asko Soukka starts to use GZZ 0.6 in hope of better re-usability |
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and interconnectivity of his notes. Because Asko used to create |
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his notes as mind maps, from fall 2001 to spring 2002 he did some |
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wheel view development to "emulate" mind mapping on GZZ. |
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|
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2002 |
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==== |
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|
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Spring: |
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------- |
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|
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Tuomas invents unique backgrounds using procedural texturing and fillets (softened |
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connections). |
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|
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Summer: |
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------- |
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|
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Fillets published in Information Visualization '02 -conference in London. |
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|
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Basic design of storm (xanalogical hypertext using GUIDs) published by Tuomas and Benja |
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at HT'02. Benja gives the presentation as Tuomas doesn't want to travel to the US. |
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|
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Irregular edges invented |
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|
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Fall: |
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----- |
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|
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Asko Soukka (a user-friendly information technology student at |
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Jyväskylä University) joins the projects as a conscientious |
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objector (person undergoing non-military service). Asko gets |
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introduced with the new development version and sets his target |
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to create a new mind map note tool until fall 2003. |
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|
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Tuomas and Janne make the mistake of overreaching by trying to send articles |
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about both irregular edges and unique backgrounds to the same conference. |
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Neither article passes because both had to be finished in a hurry. However, encouragingly, |
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the referees' reports are contradictory, implying that there *is* a lot of potential. |
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|
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2003 |
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==== |
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|
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Spring: |
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------- |
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|
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The idea for building Lego controllers invented in a discussion about |
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how we could order Legos with the project's funds ;) ;) |
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|
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The secret controller (secret because a patent may be applied) invented. |
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Ted Nelson informs us that he doesn't want to license the zzStructure US patent |
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after all, and is building a commercial version. After the initial shock, |
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we react by changing the name of the project, splitting the project (so that |
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as many as possible parts are not depending on each other) and starting |
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to use RDF. |
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|
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RDF turns out to be successful: it's a standard format with already several |
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tools, and does not share zzStructure's problems. What seemed like a catastrophe |
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has actually turned out well. |
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|
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Asko reimplements his wheel view for Loom, the possible successor of |
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the basic GZZ client. Wheel view seem to have at least some |
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potential to show plain RDF structure as a spatial *hyper space*. |
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|
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Asko works for a independent release Navidoc: the collection of |
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project's documentation utilies. An article about Navidoc's |
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ability to crosslink between distinct documentation using |
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imagemapped UML diagrams is submitted to HyperText '03 conference, |
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but gets slightly rejected because of its immaturity. |