Tools/System
Send questions to: thwang@cs.stanford.edu
Last
updated:
December
10, 1998
Our team did not dwell long on tool selections. At first, there were three candidates for us to build prototypes: Java, Visual Basic and PowerPoint. After a brief discussion and comparison, we came to the conclusion that Java is the best one for this project.
Visual Basic is an off-shelf product from Microsoft. It is a generic language to build various software packages, from full-fledged database applications to bare-bone prototypes. In our case, we need some dynamic demonstration in our prototype. Though VB has many pre-built components in its package, it is not good for dynamic demonstration as required by our prototypes. What is more, it is an expensive software. We do not intend to incur any extra expense for building a prototype for a classroom project.
PowerPoint is a handy tool to make presentation slides. It has sufficient capabilities to put all the components on the screen but does not have the type of prototyping capabilities that we need. Due to our limited time, we used PowerPoint as backup to produce a screen prototype quickly.
Java has been around for nearly 4 years. Due to its openness and its inherent integration with the Internet, it is gaining popularity. It has been predicted that Java will be the next generation computer programming language, succeeding C++. Our team was very enthusiastic about embracing this new technology and one of our team members has intimate knowledge of Java. Meanwhile, it is a good time for the other two members to learn Java. On top of that, the main reason that we adopted Java to build our prototype was that it is open to public domain and there are no fees involved in the use of JDK.
Currently there are three major versions of Java Development Kit (JDK): 1.0, 1.1 and 1.2. For the sake of compatibility issues, we selected JDK 1.1, which is supported by Netscape Communicator 4.xx and IE 4.01.
Later in the project, other tools were used as needed. Photoshop5 and a SONY MAVICA digital camera were used quite extensively in gathering assets for the screens.
The pros and cons of the aforementioned tools are summarized in the following table:
