Daniel Bisque's Blog - All Comments

re: Farewell Dr. Dave

roystarman — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:00:40 GMT

Dave was one of those people who would step up to help with no expectation of reward. Many is the time I e-mailed him for some simple SKY6 issue. He responded quiuckly and most of the time accurately. He was a very giving man and seemed to have a bottomless well for compassion. I never saw him angry or ever lose his temper in almost 20 years I knew him.

I ceratinly miss him and my most sincere best wishes to his family.

re: Farewell Dr. Dave

tomsimstad — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 23:39:06 GMT

Dave, you will be missed. Our astronomy hobby is is better off because of you.

Tom

re: Lock Up the Developers!

Daniel R. Bisque — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 12:11:18 GMT

>>Any further updates on when the release date is likely to be?

See TheSkyX Pro page for details:

www.bisque.com/.../TheSkyX-Professional-Edition.aspx

re: Lock Up the Developers!

m20168710 — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 00:52:47 GMT

Any further updates on when the release date is likely to be ?

Linas Petras

re: Lock Up the Developers!

Daniel R. Bisque — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:24:47 GMT

Thanks for sharing your software development secrets. We'll keep them in mind...

re: Lock Up the Developers!

astrotrf — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 15:07:38 GMT

@trimil: My take on the software tangle is rather different. I think the approach of one single huge all-singing all-dancing application to do everything is the wrong way to go about things. I'm an *advocate* of the proliferation of task-specific software. I'd like an application that controls my CCD camera -- but that's *all* I want it to do (because it's a big-enough job as it is). I don't need it to also be an image aligner, RGB stacker, image processor, plate solver, etc. Put all of that stuff in *separate* applications; interconnect them if you'd like. The same sort of thing is true of the program that runs my mount.

Huge monolithic programs that take years to upgrade or port, and are so hugely complex that all of the bugs are *never* gone, are just not the way to go. Development cycles measured in geological ages make people yearn for alternatives, and as a vendor, that's NOT what you want them thinking!

Additionally, interconnecting these programs should not rely on large, complex, ultra-magical glue software, no matter how sexy it looks. The way to make interconnects simple and reliable is to use simple, reliable methods. Open a TCP port; accept connections that provide human-readable ASCII commands; crack them and do what they say. This is easy to write, easy to troubleshoot, and easy to debug.

There; now I've revealed essentially all of my secrets to writing ultra-reliable network-interconnected medical software.

Oh, and BTW, put *timestamps* on protocol log files -- with hundredth-of-a-second accuracy (or better, if the system clock allows).

re: Lock Up the Developers!

Daniel R. Bisque — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:46:08 GMT

trimil wrote:

Is there a goal that SkyX will eventually integrate and improve the reliability of this tangle?

In short, yes. TheSkyX's new driver arch. tries to address this mess (in a cross-platform, standard driver model sort of way).

As you surely know, the hardware must be up to the task, too.

re: Lock Up the Developers!

trimil — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 18:14:14 GMT

Old jokes:

1) In the life of every project there comes a day when it's necessary to shoot the engineers and start shipping.

2) The first 90% of any software project requires 90% of the time scheduled, finishing the last details requires the other 90%.

My days of program management are (thankfully) a fading memory, but I understand the challenges with anything as complex as this rewrite -- keep plugging, quality is more important than schedule.

A larger issue for me concerns the proliferation of task-specific software for astro imaging. Mounts, cameras, focusers, guiders, domes, weather stations, roof/dome controls -- this scene is becoming the software equivalent of a rat's nest! Under Sky6 and WinXP, my experience is not positive when more than three devices are involved in the lash-up. Is there a goal that SkyX will eventually integrate and improve the reliability of this tangle?

re: Lock Up the Developers!

Daniel R. Bisque — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 12:47:19 GMT

Please visit TheSkyX Professional Edition page for the latest information regarding its release.

www.bisque.com/.../TheSkyX-Professional-Edition.aspx

re: Lock Up the Developers!

Ronin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:41:21 GMT

It is now February 2010 and no update to the release date....

Please keep us betterinformed.

re: Paramount ME Assists "Super-Earth" Discovery

Mikio Miles — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 22:37:35 GMT

Wow, what incredible equipment! Would love to see those in person.

Mikio, Fellow <a href="www.cehd.org/.../a> Researcher

re: Lock Up the Developers!

kevind — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 01:34:49 GMT

I am sure that the wait will be well worth it. But, PLEASE, make sure it runs effectively on Windows Vista as I don' plan to upgrade to Windows 7 anytime soon.

Clear skies,

Kevin

re: Lock Up the Developers!

Daniel R. Bisque — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:51:48 GMT

Congratulations on the supernova discoveries!

We really, really appreciate the positive comments.

(Although, In this case, I can't take credit for the support; Matt and Tom are the 'guilty' parties.)

re: Lock Up the Developers!

reteps — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 22:48:31 GMT

The Sky 6 Pro & Orchestrate work just fine on my upgraded Win7 laptop (Celeron1.86, 2 gig ram and a measly 80 gig HDD).

Sky6 Pro starts faster and delivers stored images quicker than when I downgraded from XP to Vista. So I can wait for SkyX Pro as the Sky6 Pro does everything I need at present. I now have 3 Supernova discoveries 2008fa, 2009J(independant discovery) & 2009gd and I would like to acknowldege the terrific assistance and patience that Daniel B gave me in writing out a script that allowed me to place my reference images directly into the Sky6 Pro. This was so very valuable with my ability to quickly check galaxies in real time. These guys know what they are doing, put your faith in them - they do it well and they support it like no other.

Happy to wait for the best of the rest..

Peter Marples

re: Lock Up the Developers!

Matthew Ota — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:57:41 GMT

Hey Bisque Bros, I would rather wait patiently for a bug-free Pro version than to have you guys rush out an unfinished product...just make sure it runs on WIndows XP...please.