Dear Frank,
fsgregs wrote:Dear Fridger:
I'm stumped!! I can make the comma go away in the date display
by changing the regional settings in the control panel, but the
comma also goes away in all numbers, including the distance and
speed displays. That is not good.
I don't see why this syntax is not good. It's a perfectly correct
mathematical representation. The problem is that Chris changed
those routines from 1.4.0pre6 (> 1 year ago) to the recent CVS
code (including DrJoe's patches!). I can only check the CVS code,
which uses --as I stated earlier-- a
systems time display
routine. So nothing for us to fiddle here! Toti and I have never
even touched that stuff.
This amounts both in Linux and my Windows display to this output
which I am personally happy with:

Anybody else complaining??
Also, I had not changed my regional display in the past. In fact,
when I run 1.4.0pre 6 on my computer, the date has NO comma,
while the distance and speed displays do, just as they should.
Obviously, there is something in the code that exempted the date
from using a comma in pre 6, that is no longer doing that in
subsequent builds.
Could you please accept that during the past year the respective
code was throroughly changed by Chris (<==DrJoe's patches)
between 1.4.0pre6 and CVS on which FT1.1 is footing!
I am reluctant to change it back because of a /comma/.
Fridger wrote:I really don't appreciate very much being bugged
by you (and only you) continuously via PM and in public to speed
up our FT development...We are obviously not sleeping...
...
You serve in a very demanding professional capacity at CERN,
While I indeed worked at CERN/Geneva/Ch for 7 years a long time ago, my laboratory is actually DESY/Hamburg/D ...
http://www.desy.de/desy-th/members.html ...
I have been trying to rush you to fix the expected bugs in the
project because your work is worthy of being seen by everyone
everywhere, without bugs, as soon as possible. I have always
admired quality in people, and in their work. My philosophy is
simple. We all just go around on Earth once. It might as well be
the best we can make it. FT 1.1 is a major improvement to
Celestia. We have you and Toti to thank. I simply want my
students, and all the kids who may benefit from my Educational
Activities, to enjoy the galaxies you both have created.
While all this sounds fine in principle, your arguments are
intrinsically NOT tied to a particularly NARROW time scale. It rather
seems to me (excuse me if I'm wrong here) that you presumably
have a (commercial?) agreement with a CD publisher who is
getting impatient (rather than those many American school kids
that are to profit from your Celestia CD, which their schools are
supposed to buy?). At least I do not know of any publishers who
produce CD's for purely idealistic reasons.
In my latest post, I assumed that since you have already fixed
some of the bugs in FT 1.1, it might be a simple matter for you or
Toti to post just the new exe file, rather than compiling the entire
download again. Then, in the next week or two, you could
recompile the complete package.
There are people who apparently get confused by such practice
(Daniel...) as the release of FT1 has clearly demonstrated. As a
matter of principle, I do see NO reasons whatsoever for rushing,
notably in case money is involved. If this is all incorrect, please
accept my sincere apologies...
Without FT 1.1, my alternative is to include 1.4.0pre6 with my CD
project. It works well and has no real bugs, but ... it does not
have your new work! Potentially thousands of school kids will be
cheated if they cannot see those 10,000 galaxies in full color
splendor.
Again if we talk about a non-commercial venture, I cannot see why
your thousands of school kids cannot wait a little longer (and get
better quality in exchange)...
Bye Fridger