What about a Soft Phone

I am not talking about remaking Vontage (TM) or Skype(TM).
I'm just talking about the 2500 set (You know the black Bell telephone set we all use to have [well those old enough]). What I am talking about is a part of most of the software that comes free with modems. Only the ones that come in most packages are tied to a particular modem or means of connecting to the voice network. This would be one that handles all the keypad functions and hides the network stuff from the user. You want to use POTS, fine. You want use VOIP, fine. You want to connect to a PBX/ACD and provide commands over a X.25 link, fine.

Maybe you want to get fancy and handle hold/flash hook/transfer/etc.

Prof Bill's Project Ideas

First, sorry my project ideas are late in arriving. The brilliance of this collection will more than make up for my tardiness (cough).
I have three ideas. Run!

Design Pattern Helper
It would be fun/interesting to investigate ways that software could to either automate or teach design patterns . One scenario: the guy enters his pattern, you show him the UML and then query him for specific objects he wants to incorporate into the pattern. The software could then generate a template of code (like we do manually in our homework) as a starting point for the designer dude.

Newbie Coder Helper
I have talked about this idea in class already. The basic problem is to ease the learning curve of basic programming constructs to a newbie coder... a CSC 160 student in Noctrl-speak. How could concepts like if-then, loops, object/classes/fields/methods, arrays, etc. be introduced graphically to a student. You could show side-by-side your graphical representation and the code that it represents.
Some similar software includes the Alice system (www.alice.org) and the Logo programming environment. Each of these is far more general-purpose than what I envision, but it's a start. I have a nice little book describing Alice, BTW.

Checkbook or Investment Manager (just not both at the same time)
Now, there are lots of these online/around, but it could still be an interesting study because of the variety and number of different classes that I presume you'd need to build something like this. For example, I dislike Quicken intensely because (I think) it tries to combine balancing your checkbook with investment management. Separating these two activities may lead to a simpler program and cleaner design. If you have similar feelings toward Quicken, then this may be a fun project for you to flush out.

OK, three ideas.
Start some chatter on any of these three or better... and I'd like to see an idea or two contributed by each person.
thanks... yow, bill

PS - I'll check back in a couple days

Hellooo!!

This is a new post from Stephen Silvey for Testing, Maintainability, and Extensibility purposes.

Gents,

Here I am! Officially on this awesome blog!

Mike

Hey dudes,

I am here to stay. I guess Stephen will be my project partner.

I am here!!!

Testing 4, 5, 6...
Thanks to Matt and Richard for setting up this BLOG!
Sorry, just playing with the new controls.

OK, please everyone post a comment or reply on the blog to show they're alive.
thanks... yow, bill

PS - I'll shortly start a "project research" post, and we'll get the ball rolling.
PPS - Sorry. Playing again...

testing 123 ...