CE - Project Related Ideas & Discussions

[The_Big_K]

This thread is dedicated to the discussions & ideas related to the first online CE project that the Crazy Engineers wish to start.

Before we actually begin to work on the project, we will have to wait till we have a better structure on the forums as well as a thorough knowledge of what are we actually planning to do.

For the first project, let us stick to the following points-

1. It should not be a big project with 100 modules. Idea is to be confident that we can actually make a project successful. It will give us confidence as well.
2. Let us keep it very simple. It will attract more people to get started. Once we sail through 2-3 projects, we'll move forward to 'Innovation'!

For the time being, all ideas for the CE-Project should be posted on this thread.

Let us do a good job & have fun

-The Big K-

[xheavenlyx]

A question which has been disturbing from yeasterday is that, how will we assign members to make a practical model, if we do think of that.

Or do we just work on the modules and write detailed reports on it. Individually we might simulate the modules, but cant excessivly since every module is needed for a full working.

Clear this please.

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by xheavenlyx

A question which has been disturbing from yeasterday is that, how will we assign members to make a practical model, if we do think of that.

Or do we just work on the modules and write detailed reports on it. Individually we might simulate the modules, but cant excessivly since every module is needed for a full working.

Clear this please.

Your post mentions one of the probable obstacle which CE project will face. But it can be tackled. First of all, let us be clear that the First CE project will be a little software *product*. We'll make it available for download once we are ready with something which can 'run' as a product.

This is my idea (Its very generic & open to debate) -

• Each CEan who is willing to work on the project, takes ownership of a module.
• He/she will follow the coding guidelines which the whole team will come up with.
• One or two CEans will integrate all the modules and do the debugging if needed.
• We will create a separate project place to host stuff. There are a few available. I'll do the needful, so relax.

-The Big K-

[xheavenlyx]

I agree with you bigie. Lets see what comes up, if anyone has an idea post it on. Im looking into something too presently. Let you know when I myself can makeout what Im thinking

Good luck all!

[Mahesh]

Great idea Biggie.I want know what are the requirements to do the project? Is it sufficient to have knowledge on basic languages like C andC++?

[Neha]

I guess we should start a project in C/C++ only coz these are the basic languages which almost every engineer is aware of.
But the question on the selection of the team still arises as we don't know anything regarding the programming level of team members.

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by Neha

I guess we should start a project in C/C++ only coz these are the basic languages which almost every engineer is aware of.
But the question on the selection of the team still arises as we don't know anything regarding the programming level of team members.

This probably highlights the reason why I want more CEans to be active on forums. Shall we do a survey of those interested in such a project?

Let me drop my idea of first CE project -

CE - Messenger: I'm a fan of instant messengers. How if we make our own instant messenger? I'm talking about a very basic messenger to start with. It will be available for all and also help us in brand building

Can we have any innovative ideas for the CE - Messenger?

-The Big K-

[xheavenlyx]

I'll post some questions to ponder on so its easier for CE-ns to get an idea of what we can make of CE- Messenger. I just love the idea

# A software package for download? A Visual C++ made messenger?
# Simple Java based sofware for downlaod?
# an IRC chat channel opening in a new window, faster!

Personaly, as biggie also feels, we can have a software based CE- messenger. To learn the basic idea this! might be resourceful.

Regards!

[rick]

I am game for it! I do not use messenger but I think its a great idea to have our own messenger

As Biggie says, let us keep it very simple. Wow, I am excited about it now !

CE ROCKS

[The_Big_K]

Originally Posted by xheavenlyx

I'll post some questions to ponder on so its easier for CE-ns to get an idea of what we can make of CE- Messenger. I just love the idea

# A software package for download? A Visual C++ made messenger?
# Simple Java based sofware for downlaod?
# an IRC chat channel opening in a new window, faster!

Personaly, as biggie also feels, we can have a software based CE- messenger. To learn the basic idea this! might be resourceful.

Regards!

Thanks for the link, xHx. Of course we want it to be a downloadable client. I love the clean interface of Gtalk messenger. Let's have something similar. I expect the project to start sometime in December 2006.

More ideas are welcome.

-The Big K-

[desijays]

Honestly, I don't find a reason why this thread has been dormant for over a month now. I mean ideas were coming up fast and and a sudden stop!!!. But I suppose its merely a case of a less number of participants. I don't think that should be a problem.

I actually like the idea of a messenger. its really cool.

I think we should follow upon this without giving up. It would be a shame to stop that which has been started.

come on guys, pitch in with your ideas. it doesn't have to be messenger. if there is anything else you could come up with, well and fine. Ofcourse, as long as the complexity involed doesn't exponentiate beyond what can be done with the least amount of hassle.

[The_Big_K]

Hey desijays!

Of course we are not giving it up! We need more active members to actually start a project and work on it. This is important because we don't want to stop the project even if members leave in between (highly possible).

Instant Messenger is widely used application and I think it'll be fun to use our own messenger to communicate with CEans. Let us first gain confidence by actually coming up with an executable. We need to finalize the idea first. I assume everyone is excited about CE-Messenger concept.

Let us hope that more CEans join the CE Messenger team

-The Big K-

[Neha]

Chatting with your own messenger...Sounds great!!

Count me in..

[aashima]

Well Instant massenger would be a nice project to get started with. Though I have so far studied only C language but even if we decide to make it in some other language, I would love to be there for any possible help.
Lets get the basic structure as soon as possible. What say?

[desijays]

i got my tests around the corner. will be busy for 2 weeks. after that i'm all game. ive already thought about the basic structure the program will take.

i have always thought that the best way to stand out in a crowd is to not do the most obvious thing. Or in other words try to be that yellow rose in a garden of red roses.

so along the same lines i was just thinking, that instead of going for an extravagent GUI and such why don't we start with a CLI application. a couple of reasons...

1 ) sounds technical and geeky. especially if an onlooker looks at us, he would think we're some kind of hacker or something. but this is the least of the necessities. read on..

2 ) will be plain, bare, slick and minimum with all the expected functionalities. not a bloat like yahoo or msn messenger.

3 ) no hassles with deciding or using a graphics library. if at all the need arises eventually we can make it as a seperate binary that interfaces with the cli, simulating the commands we type.

4 ) can be made a portable application without warranting registry entries in windows and will be a self contained binary in linux. (ex: portable vlc, opera portable one-use )

5 ) we can add all the features we want. dcc, voip, friends list.. and so on and so forth. we can also add exclusive functionality that wont be found anywhere else. interesting ideas from all of you would help in this dept. inline scripting would be one, for advanced users of this messenger. the ability to customize their version of the messenger the way they want it to, without delving into the source. if the messenger is intented to be closed source, then this is the way to go. yahoo, msn and stuff don't provide such functionality. thats why anyday anytime, there will always be more users in IRC compared to yahoo or msn. thats just an example. we can come up with other interesting things.

6) and finally if we find that the cli is a little too primitive we can always switch to a gui. not a problem. but in all honesty, i have found cli applications to provide far more freedom than gui apps.

in due course, to supplement all of the above, we would have by default created a proprietary application level protocol. Imagine having our own RFC documenting this protocol. That would be coo