AOPA Flight Planner - Microsoft only?

"Blanche" wrote in message
...
Peter Duniho wrote:
"Wizard of Draws" wrote in message
Andrew isn't even close to a rabid Mac fanatic on the basis of what
he's
posted here.

Of course he is. Anyone silly enough to claim that using a Mac is in and
of
itself safe computing (or that using a Windows machine in and of itself
is
not) is by definition a rabid Mac fanatic.

Of course, most Mac users are rabid Mac fanatics. It's the only way
Apple
could have hoped to have survived under their business model.

Perhaps I missed something. Where did Andrew state he was a Mac
user?


He did mention Mac OSX

Gig Giacona wrote:

He did mention Mac OSX

I [probably] did. I don't use it myself, but I see it as the "up and
comer". While I don't myself deal much with office or home computing
(beyond my own home, anyway), I see a lot of traffic in groups where I
participate that describes people switching. More, I encourage it where I
can given the concerns about MSFT security and the more general monoculture
problem.

Further, while I'm a long time UNIX user (I've had some interesting desktops
at work: A SUN 3/50, a DEC Pro-350 running some UNIX, an HP "Bobcat" (I
forget the model number), a MicroVAX etc.), I recognize that this may not
be a good solution for those not technically inclined. The current Apple
product, though, appears a good choice for those people.

That is, it's a good choice except where companies permit programmers to
build single-vendor solutions. Note that we're not speaking of "porting".
Cross platform support should be designed in at the beginning, eliminating
the need for a "port". Even ten years ago, there were various libraries
that provided GUI constructs to programmers which worked on multiple
platforms, for example. Have these all disappeared?

- Andrew

Having done much cross-platform work, I find the process very
frustrating because you need to program to the lowest common
denominator. (A number of years back, I was forced to write my own
memory manager because the one MS provided at the time was a piece of
junk.) This is one of the benefits of languages like Java.
Platform-independent and full of useful libraries. Unfortunately, I
think one of the posters on this thread is correct. I think this is a
derivative of something from Jepp. The map interface looks a lot like
their FlightPro IFR simulator. I'm sure the program could have been
done in Java, but I would guess that the budget for the project was
small (understandably) and Jepp probably wanted the exposure. I do like
the ability of clicking on an airport and bringing up the IAPs or
airport diagrams that AOPA has on it's web site, but, again, this still
could have been cross-platform if desired.

Andrew Gideon wrote:
Gig Giacona wrote:


He did mention Mac OSX


I [probably] did. I don't use it myself, but I see it as the "up and
comer". While I don't myself deal much with office or home computing
(beyond my own home, anyway), I see a lot of traffic in groups where I
participate that describes people switching. More, I encourage it where I
can given the concerns about MSFT security and the more general monoculture
problem.

Further, while I'm a long time UNIX user (I've had some interesting desktops
at work: A SUN 3/50, a DEC Pro-350 running some UNIX, an HP "Bobcat" (I
forget the model number), a MicroVAX etc.), I recognize that this may not
be a good solution for those not technically inclined. The current Apple
product, though, appears a good choice for those people.

That is, it's a good choice except where companies permit programmers to
build single-vendor solutions. Note that we're not speaking of "porting".
Cross platform support should be designed in at the beginning, eliminating
the need for a "port". Even ten years ago, there were various libraries
that provided GUI constructs to programmers which worked on multiple
platforms, for example. Have these all disappeared?

- Andrew



--
Remove "2PLANES" to reply.

Tony Cox wrote:
If you are using Linux or Solaris, have you tried running the
application with 'wine' (www.winehq.com)?
I've tried several Windows native applications on Linux and
had no problems, although I've not yet tried the flight planner.
('wine' is a free Windows API emulator that runs on a variety
of other OS)

It seems to only support Solaris X86, not Sparc. And it doesn't seem
to have support for Mac OSX, either. Nevertheless, I downloaded
the source and compiled it on my Sun (sparc), anyway. It's coming up
with some errors that I might try and figure out on Monday.

--- Jay


--

__!__
Jay and Teresa Masino ___(_)___
http://www2.ari.net/jmasino ! ! !
http://www.oceancityairport.com
http://www.oc-adolfos.com

C J Campbell wrote:

If the market was worth the development cost then they would do it. It is
all about money. No one gives a #*&^( about your opinion that one OS is
'better' than another.

Last I looked, AOPA was based in the United States, not some lunatic's
idea of a socialist paradise that requires equal effort be spent on all
operating systems, no matter how few people use each one.

If the AOPA planner wasn't a web based application then I'd agree with you.
Current market conditions would make it very difficult to justify spending
even a small extra amount to provide support for Linux and OSX.

But development for web based content that is platform independent need not
cost any more. Combine that with the fact that Mac and Linux usage is
growing and I think it makes AOPA look rather short sighted.

At some point Macs and Linux boxen may become a large enough segment that
AOPA will want to provide support for them. Porting a Windows only app will
then add to whatever it cost them now.

The Internet works best when it is platform independent and so everytime
someone puts content out that excludes a whole class machines we all lose.

--
Frank....H

In article , Jay Masino wrote:
Tony Cox wrote:
If you are using Linux or Solaris, have you tried running the
application with 'wine' (www.winehq.com)?

It seems to only support Solaris X86, not Sparc.i

Wine just provides the Win32 API and associated cruft. If you have a
Sparc binary for Windows (unlikely!) then Wine would work with it -
otherwise since your Sparc doesn't do ia32 instructions, you're
buggered unless you have an ia32 emulator.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Are you always such an ignorant a**hole?


"C J Campbell" wrote in message
...
If the market was worth the development cost then they would do it. It is
all about money. No one gives a #*&^( about your opinion that one OS is
'better' than another.

Last I looked, AOPA was based in the United States, not some lunatic's
idea
of a socialist paradise that requires equal effort be spent on all
operating
systems, no matter how few people use each one.

Ah, so the only good product is the one that the sheeple buy?


"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
Sylvain,

I prefer to use a real computer myself, but there are some simple
solution: commercial solutions like I use myself (running AOPA Flight
Planning under either VMware or VirtualPC -- the former making it
possible
to run it from Linux, among other things, the latter from Macintosh);
or
another free solution: AOPA Flight Planning works just fine under Wine
(under linux);


This made me fall of my seat with laughter: You claim to be using "a real
computer" and then go on to describe how to use the "real computer" to
make
it behave like a "non-real computer"???? Jeeze...

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

"Thomas Borchert" wrote in message
...
Personally, I have to agree with both AOPA and Peter. The vast majority
of AOPA members would have to consider a Mac/Linux-or-whatever version
a colossal waste of their money. And the "security by minority" scheme
doesn't work.

Um, I'm seeing a huge demand for offices to switch to Linux due to security
concerns. If you think "security by minority" is why Linux is more secure
then your words are extended beyond your knowledge. I am also baffled by
your opinion that Linux is a "collosal waste" of money. Price Windows XP
Pro and Office XP and compare to any of the commercially supported Linux
distributions with StarOffice or OpenOffice. Large corporations and
governments are indeed making the switch based on cost savings alone (e.g.,
Israel). Or pay the same price and instead of the product you get some
serious support, training and customization (e.g., Germany). Studies by
large corporations have shown that Linux is now easier to install than
Windows and is just as easy for end users to operate (e.g., Siemens).

But, you're entitled to your opinion.

"Jay Masino" wrote in message
...
Tony Cox wrote:
If you are using Linux or Solaris, have you tried running the
application with 'wine' (www.winehq.com)?
I've tried several Windows native applications on Linux and
had no problems, although I've not yet tried the flight planner.
('wine' is a free Windows API emulator that runs on a variety
of other OS)

It seems to only support Solaris X86, not Sparc. And it doesn't seem
to have support for Mac OSX, either. Nevertheless, I downloaded
the source and compiled it on my Sun (sparc), anyway. It's coming up
with some errors that I might try and figure out on Monday.


I don't think that will work. As I remember, 'wine' is designed around
IA32, at least as far as running native Windows applications is concerned.
If you had the source for the Flight Planner that would be a different
matter...

(It works by actually running code from the Windows application image,
jumping out to emulator code for all Windows API calls, such as system
services and graphic calls. It converts the latter to Unix-style posix calls
and X-windows calls respectively. In typical smart-arse Unix-developer
speak,
'wine' stands for "wine is not {an} emulator", which I suppose is strictly
correct if a little misleading).

If you have Linux SUSE, 'wine' is an optional product that you can just
install from the CD.