Full Thrust Ship Creator

Hello All,

First let me apologise for the lack of recent correspondence and
updates.  I 
have being very busy lately, keeping stupidly long days (and nights) and

working my backside off on a University project.  So just an update on a
few 
things:

1) The vicious Australian wildlife hasn't gotten the best of me yet,
I've 
being able to fend it off with what I've learn't of the Crocodile
Hunter, 
strewth, that show is useful!  Thanks for the concern anyway.

2) The FTSC project is still running!  It may not look that way but it
is, 
its just caught in stasis.

3) The website is currently sitting idle at http://ftsc.congdonweb.net
no updates have been posted for ages, but I intend to publicy release a
very 
early beta, which will probably be termed a prototype as I intend to
start 
from scratch doing it properly. (Now all I have to do is workout what I
did 
with the links and instructions).

4) What do I intend to do with the FTSC? Well I intend to start again
doing 
the following:
	a) Setting out what I will do properly from the start and fixing
it in a
	    proper requirements specification, eliminating a lot of the
reasons
	    for delays and problems in previous versions.
	b) Create a proper software architecture, which will make the
program far
	    easier to produce (as I've being learning in the last few
weeks)
	c) Produce a detailed design document which contributes to the
quality of
	    program and make implementation far easier (i hope).
	d) Produce a test plan and do significantly more testing.  This,
although 
	    time consuming, will greatly improve the program. I may
require help from
	    some of you guys in this one.
	e) Use a better language, and make it portable, supporting at
least Windows
	    and linux, and maybe Mac OS. (Mac OS X and BSD will probably
be fairly
	    straight forward from linux).
	f)  In other words, I don't intend to go at it head strong with
a bit of 
	    programming knowledge like I started off.  I intend to sit
down and plan 
	    the project.

Hopefully I will be able to produce some progress in a few weeks time
after 
exams, but if what my uni project supervisors tell me is true, I won't
be 
getting much of a holiday.

Well I will hopefully post again in a few days with the beta or
'prototype' 
of version 2, but no promises.

Cheers,
Andrew Ayres
mailto:ftshipcreator@bigpond.com