From gwadej at anomaly.org  Thu Feb  5 17:02:19 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 19:02:19 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] February Meeting
Message-ID: <20090205190219.0d5cb35f@sovvan>

This month's meeting is next Tuesday (Feb. 10) at the regular time and
place (6pm at 1111 Fannin).

I'll be presenting "RRDTool Tips and Traps". I hope to see you there.

G. Wade
-- 
You write code as if the person who will maintain your code is a violent
psychopath who knows where you live.                -- John F. Woods

From gwadej at anomaly.org  Sat Feb  7 15:30:49 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 17:30:49 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Potential SVG Hackathon
Message-ID: <20090207173049.0c64fa8f@sovvan>

The SVG Interest Group is considering helping to coordinate with
programming groups to do some form of SVG hackathon. The idea would be
to help with any project using SVG and to help familiarize group
members with this image format.

Would any of you be interested in such an event if one were available
in the Houston area?

G. Wade
-- 
To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?

From mikeflan at att.net  Sun Feb  8 04:56:04 2009
From: mikeflan at att.net (Mike Flannigan)
Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:56:04 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Potential SVG Hackathon
In-Reply-To: <20090207173049.0c64fa8f@sovvan>
References: <20090207173049.0c64fa8f@sovvan>
Message-ID: <498ED664.7000605@att.net>


G. Wade Johnson wrote:
> The SVG Interest Group is considering helping to coordinate with
> programming groups to do some form of SVG hackathon. The idea would be
> to help with any project using SVG and to help familiarize group
> members with this image format.
>
> Would any of you be interested in such an event if one were available
> in the Houston area?
>
> G. Wade
>   

I didn't know what SVG was, so I looked it up:

SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, is an open W3C standard for graphics 
on the web. "Vector graphics" means that SVG images are made up of 
lines, curves and other "smooth" elements, unlike "bitmap" formats such 
as GIF, JPEG or PNG. When you zoom in on a GIF, JPEG or PNG, it gets 
grainy and blocky - but when you zoom in on an SVG, it stays smooth.

Reportedly like Flash.

It's often used for GIS/Mapping applications, which I
am interested in.  I'd like to hear what is happening
on a high level, so maybe I'll join the Interest Group.


Mike


From gwadej at anomaly.org  Sun Feb  8 08:26:14 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:26:14 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Potential SVG Hackathon
In-Reply-To: <498ED664.7000605@att.net>
References: <20090207173049.0c64fa8f@sovvan>
	<498ED664.7000605@att.net>
Message-ID: <20090208102614.10cf1f94@sovvan>

On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:56:04 -0600
Mike Flannigan <mikeflan at att.net> wrote:

> 
> G. Wade Johnson wrote:
> > The SVG Interest Group is considering helping to coordinate with
> > programming groups to do some form of SVG hackathon. The idea would
> > be to help with any project using SVG and to help familiarize group
> > members with this image format.
> >
> > Would any of you be interested in such an event if one were
> > available in the Houston area?
> >
> > G. Wade
> >   
> 
> I didn't know what SVG was, so I looked it up:

Sorry, I've been using SVG for quite a few years and forgot everyone
doesn't know about it.

> SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, is an open W3C standard for
> graphics on the web. "Vector graphics" means that SVG images are made
> up of lines, curves and other "smooth" elements, unlike "bitmap"
> formats such as GIF, JPEG or PNG. When you zoom in on a GIF, JPEG or
> PNG, it gets grainy and blocky - but when you zoom in on an SVG, it
> stays smooth.

The specification also supports scripting of elements (through
ecmascript) and declarative animation (through SMIL). There are also
advanced filtering features for changing elements.

> Reportedly like Flash.

That's a common misconception. SVG is more of a powerful 2D graphics
format that can be scripted, rather than a system for building larger
applications. You can build relatively impressive applications in SVG,
but that wasn't it's main focus.

> It's often used for GIS/Mapping applications, which I
> am interested in.  I'd like to hear what is happening
> on a high level, so maybe I'll join the Interest Group.

There's an SVG developers group on Yahoo, which serves as a gathering
place for people developing with SVG.
(http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/)

The SVG IG is maintaining a new site at http://planetsvg.com/.

The SVG Wiki is located at http://wiki.svg.org/Main_Page.

Currently, SVG is natively supported by Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and the
Webkit-based browsers (Safari). It is also being used extensively in
the KDE window manager for Linux.

There are a couple of plugins for IE, but they have been less supported
in recent years. New plugins are on the horizon.

Sorry for leaving out all of the background information.
G. Wade
-- 
Don't kill him!! If you kill him, he won't learn nothin'!
                                    -- The Riddler, "Batman Forever"

From gwadej at anomaly.org  Sun Feb  8 08:38:51 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:38:51 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Potential SVG Hackathon
In-Reply-To: <20090208102614.10cf1f94@sovvan>
References: <20090207173049.0c64fa8f@sovvan> <498ED664.7000605@att.net>
	<20090208102614.10cf1f94@sovvan>
Message-ID: <20090208103851.61eca39e@sovvan>

I just realized that my last post may have given too limited a view of
SVG. It's not just used in GIS and cartography. SVG has also gotten
fairly strong support in the mobile computing area.

There are a few libraries on CPAN for working with SVG in Perl and
there's an Apache project, Batik, for working with SVG in Java.

If you'd like more information, check out the websites in my last post
or drop me a line.

G. Wade

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:26:14 -0600
"G. Wade Johnson" <gwadej at anomaly.org> wrote:

> On Sun, 08 Feb 2009 06:56:04 -0600
> Mike Flannigan <mikeflan at att.net> wrote:
> 
> > 
> > G. Wade Johnson wrote:
> > > The SVG Interest Group is considering helping to coordinate with
> > > programming groups to do some form of SVG hackathon. The idea
> > > would be to help with any project using SVG and to help
> > > familiarize group members with this image format.
> > >
> > > Would any of you be interested in such an event if one were
> > > available in the Houston area?
> > >
> > > G. Wade
> > >   
> > 
> > I didn't know what SVG was, so I looked it up:
> 
> Sorry, I've been using SVG for quite a few years and forgot everyone
> doesn't know about it.
> 
> > SVG, or Scalable Vector Graphics, is an open W3C standard for
> > graphics on the web. "Vector graphics" means that SVG images are
> > made up of lines, curves and other "smooth" elements, unlike
> > "bitmap" formats such as GIF, JPEG or PNG. When you zoom in on a
> > GIF, JPEG or PNG, it gets grainy and blocky - but when you zoom in
> > on an SVG, it stays smooth.
> 
> The specification also supports scripting of elements (through
> ecmascript) and declarative animation (through SMIL). There are also
> advanced filtering features for changing elements.
> 
> > Reportedly like Flash.
> 
> That's a common misconception. SVG is more of a powerful 2D graphics
> format that can be scripted, rather than a system for building larger
> applications. You can build relatively impressive applications in SVG,
> but that wasn't it's main focus.
> 
> > It's often used for GIS/Mapping applications, which I
> > am interested in.  I'd like to hear what is happening
> > on a high level, so maybe I'll join the Interest Group.
> 
> There's an SVG developers group on Yahoo, which serves as a gathering
> place for people developing with SVG.
> (http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/)
> 
> The SVG IG is maintaining a new site at http://planetsvg.com/.
> 
> The SVG Wiki is located at http://wiki.svg.org/Main_Page.
> 
> Currently, SVG is natively supported by Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and
> the Webkit-based browsers (Safari). It is also being used extensively
> in the KDE window manager for Linux.
> 
> There are a couple of plugins for IE, but they have been less
> supported in recent years. New plugins are on the horizon.
> 
> Sorry for leaving out all of the background information.
> G. Wade


-- 
As a software development model, Anarchy does not scale well.
                                                       -- Dave Welch

From evan.kaufman at gmail.com  Sun Feb  8 14:57:03 2009
From: evan.kaufman at gmail.com (Evan Kaufman)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 16:57:03 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Potential SVG Hackathon
Message-ID: <c18252740902081457g3c0f1c3avfc478a7b077167c0@mail.gmail.com>

That would actually be *very* interesting, since I've wanted to learn more
about the format but haven't had an excuse to dive into it.

On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 2:00 PM, <houston-request at pm.org> wrote:

>
> The SVG Interest Group is considering helping to coordinate with
> programming groups to do some form of SVG hackathon. The idea would be
> to help with any project using SVG and to help familiarize group
> members with this image format.
>
> Would any of you be interested in such an event if one were available
> in the Houston area?
>
> G. Wade
> --
> To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?
>
>
>
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From gwadej at anomaly.org  Sun Feb  8 15:35:34 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 17:35:34 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Potential SVG Hackathon
In-Reply-To: <c18252740902081457g3c0f1c3avfc478a7b077167c0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <c18252740902081457g3c0f1c3avfc478a7b077167c0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20090208173534.7f04c179@sovvan>

On Sun, 8 Feb 2009 16:57:03 -0600
Evan Kaufman <evan.kaufman at gmail.com> wrote:

> That would actually be *very* interesting, since I've wanted to learn
> more about the format but haven't had an excuse to dive into it.

One of the things I like best is the ease with which you can generate
good graphics from code (say, Perl for instance). Perl doesn't have a
display system for SVG, but you can always use a browser for that.

As I mentioned in the other post, there are several places to get
further information and even more for examples of SVG in action.

Depending on the level of interest (and level of knowledge), we could
probably do some kind of introduction to the format and look into
project that might benefit from some extra help hacking or testing.

G. Wade

> On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 2:00 PM, <houston-request at pm.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> > The SVG Interest Group is considering helping to coordinate with
> > programming groups to do some form of SVG hackathon. The idea would
> > be to help with any project using SVG and to help familiarize group
> > members with this image format.
> >
> > Would any of you be interested in such an event if one were
> > available in the Houston area?
> >
> > G. Wade
> > --
> > To vacillate or not to vacillate, that is the question ... or is it?
> >
> >
> >


-- 
As a software development model, Anarchy does not scale well.
                                                       -- Dave Welch

From gwadej at anomaly.org  Thu Feb 12 05:28:29 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 07:28:29 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Parrot Project looking for help
Message-ID: <20090212072829.74428882@sovvan>

The Parrot team is looking for people to read documentation and comment
on things that aren't clear or are missing. If you've wanted to help
with the project but didn't feel up to getting into the guts of the
code, this is a good way to help.

http://www.parrotblog.org/2009/02/readers-needed.html

G. Wade
-- 
Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

From gwadej at anomaly.org  Sun Feb 22 14:15:33 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:15:33 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] March Meeting
Message-ID: <20090222161533.4cd0cdcb@sovvan>

The March Houston.pm meeting is coming up on March 10 (in three weeks).

* Do you have a topic you would like to present or hear about?
* Are you working on a project you could show off?
* Do you have a project that could benefit from a couple of hours of
hack time from whoever can make the meeting?
* Is there a topic or book you think the group could discuss?

G. Wade
-- 
Always hold a grudge. Keeps the memory sharp.  -- Hagar the Horrible

From gwadej at anomaly.org  Tue Feb 24 20:08:32 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:08:32 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Apple's Fundamentals of SVG page
Message-ID: <20090224220832.3db1c8d9@sovvan>

For those who expressed an interest in SVG, there's a new page on
Apple's developer site on Fundamentals of SVG.

http://developer.apple.com/safari/articles/webcontent/fundamentalsofsvg.html

It's not a complete course, but it does introduce some basics.

G. Wade
-- 
Why do your people ask if someone's ready right before you are going to
do something massively unwise?        -- Delenn - "The War without End"

From mikeflan at att.net  Wed Feb 25 15:59:25 2009
From: mikeflan at att.net (Mike Flannigan)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:59:25 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Apple's Fundamentals of SVG page
In-Reply-To: <20090224220832.3db1c8d9@sovvan>
References: <20090224220832.3db1c8d9@sovvan>
Message-ID: <49A5DB5D.1040603@att.net>


G. Wade Johnson wrote:
> For those who expressed an interest in SVG, there's a new page on
> Apple's developer site on Fundamentals of SVG.
>
> http://developer.apple.com/safari/articles/webcontent/fundamentalsofsvg.html
>
> It's not a complete course, but it does introduce some basics.
>
> G. Wade
>   


That's a good page.  It explains SVG much better
than the other sites I've seen.

I hope to work with SVG more in the future, but I'm
not ready to bump any of my other projects to
fit this in right now.  Maybe a little, but not a lot.


Mike


From gwadej at anomaly.org  Wed Feb 25 15:59:43 2009
From: gwadej at anomaly.org (G. Wade Johnson)
Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:59:43 -0600
Subject: [pm-h] Apple's Fundamentals of SVG page
In-Reply-To: <49A5DB5D.1040603@att.net>
References: <20090224220832.3db1c8d9@sovvan>
	<49A5DB5D.1040603@att.net>
Message-ID: <20090225175943.3662faec@sovvan>

On Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:59:25 -0600
Mike Flannigan <mikeflan at att.net> wrote:

> 
> G. Wade Johnson wrote:
> > For those who expressed an interest in SVG, there's a new page on
> > Apple's developer site on Fundamentals of SVG.
> >
> > http://developer.apple.com/safari/articles/webcontent/fundamentalsofsvg.html
> >
> > It's not a complete course, but it does introduce some basics.
> >
> > G. Wade
> >   
> 
> 
> That's a good page.  It explains SVG much better
> than the other sites I've seen.
> 
> I hope to work with SVG more in the future, but I'm
> not ready to bump any of my other projects to
> fit this in right now.  Maybe a little, but not a lot.

I guess I need to step up my efforts to convert people.<grin/>

I'm thinking of a presentation at some point showing a ways to make use
of SVG from Perl. But, I haven't had the extra tuits to get it organized
yet.

G. Wade
-- 
There are only two kinds of programming languages: those people always
bitch about and those nobody uses.              -- Bjarne Stroustrup