SourceForge site

http://see-stars.sourceforge.net will be the sourceforge site. It has been created and I am in the process of getting someone to set it up ;-)

Secondly, I'd like to discuss how the type system will interact with the database. First, I said that we're going to be strongly typed. This is not just fancy terminology, this will affect how the database is structured. For instance, we might want to subdivide names for etnicities. John Doe might get the standard US ethnicity, but Wing Fe might get an asian ethnicity. This can be represented by using subtypes. Therefore, this type information must be stored in the database for fast access. In addition, we might have types for strongly cohesive groups, loosely cohesive groups, etc... (perhaps even a composite group that composes multiple strongly cohesive groups so you can see the heirarchy).

But wait! You say. If we're only doing updates then it won't take too long to create all this information, but our initial database population will take FOREVER! People will get tired of waiting! To that, I say, you're absolutely right. That is another beauty of callbacks. We're not going to do it for the initial population. Instead, we're going to use reasonable defaults, but we're going to allow for processes to continually improve the data. I think consumers expect this. They want their data fast, but they also want it right. They hope that over time their data gets better. To ensure that, we'll have reasonable defaults (so, they won't get the Asian/American matching function, they'll get the statistically based one), but when we correct that decision later, we'll let them know through the callbacks. So, they can make their business decisions quickly and then revise them when the situation merits it.

Of course, if they want to wait around, they definitely can, but we need to be adaptive and fast and continuously improving!