Re: [NTLK] [wwna-board] Re: [ANN] Einstein Platform 2006.6

Ronnie,

If I understand properly, the two questions you're throwing in are:
- how can we unite our thoughts and efforts on development for the
next Newton platform?
- where should the Worldwide Newton Conference 2007 be held?

For the first question, there are many projects that need to be
undertaken as I mentioned at the WWNC 2006. Sooner or later, Einstein
will run at a decent speed on PDAs and we will need state-of-the-art
software for it. So basically, we need:
* a new development suite (referred to as the New NTK project).
* packages using Relativity providing modern, attractive (to
developers) technologies to Einstein, such as Python, Java, OpenGL,
etc. I already wrote a simple Python evaluator that works on MacOS X
and that would work on any PDA with libpython installed. I wrote to
Sean Luke about the Java equivalent.

There is a list of things we don't need to waste our time on. For
example, NIE. Please accept that NIE is outdated and that the old MPs
will never do better than what they currently do, that is internet
through WiFi, Bluetooth and so on. Rewriting NIE is way too much work
for little result. NIE backward compatibility in Einstein is already
underway, and some bits are already available although it's not
really usable yet.

For the second question, the Einstein Night convinced me the next
conference should be in Japan.

Everybody want the conference in their backyard, which is
understandable. This is a sufficient argument to organize it in Japan
as previous conferences were in Europe and in North America. It's
only fair to rotate between the continents where most Newton users live.

But I think it is a mistake to see it this way. We must question what
is really the best for the community: we want as many attendees as
possible and a press coverage as large as possible.

What did I see at the Einstein Night? More Newton users than at the
WWNC2004 or at the WWNC2006. Actually, there were as many attendees
as the sum of the audience of WWNC2004 + WWNC2006. And this for just
a one-hour series of presentations, with no press coverage before the
event. It was not following a large Apple event such as MacWorld or
Apple Expo.

I also noticed that the organization was really great. I mean, I know
how difficult it is to organize an event and I acknowledge that Adam
did very well in San Francisco. The Einstein Night proved we can
trust the Newton Gravity group to organize this well. Moreover, the
financial details play in favor of doing it in Japan. While the
Einstein Night didn't cost anything, a Worldwide Newton Conference is
something expensive. With the resurrection of Newton Japan this week,
they realized they have some cash that slept for 8 years, seemingly
enough to cover the cost of WWNC 2006.

And finally, there was press coverage, something that lacked in San
Francisco. I was interviewed yesterday by a couple of journalists who
attended the Einstein Night.

Paul

Le 2 juin 06 à 02:27, Ronnie Simon a écrit :

> Excellent news Paul and I shall try this out over the weekend.
> This raises a number of questions and I throw this into the open to
> "test
> the water". Have we now reached the stage that we should be uniting
> our
> thoughts and efforts on development standards for the (next) Newton
> platform as suggested by this announcement ?
>
> This would generate key topics and material for the next conference
> (ideally in Spring 2007). There are at least three countries
> wanting to
> host such a conference next year.
>
> Comments please.
>
> Regards
> Ronnie Simon
>
>

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