From: Daniel Carrera <dcarrera@...>
Date: 2003-01-26T10:48:02+09:00
Subject: RAA proposal

Hello all,

Mark and I had a conversation on the categorization of RAA modules, and I 
think we (well, actually Mark) came up with something good.  I would also 
like to present a proposal for a RAA interface.  Both of these things are 
demonstrated in the following website:

http://www.math.umd.edu/~dcarrera/ruby/raa/index.html

First of all, the top-level categories would be:

1.  Business
2.  Database
3.  Data Structures
4.  Science
5.  User Interface
6.  Networking & Web
7.  Development
8.  Text Processing (Language Processing?)
9.  Security
10. Media  

These categories seem to be complete, intuitive and yet not so many as to 
clutter the page.  A more complete description (including subcategories) 
is included at the end of this message.

This is my idea for the navigation of the site (it's best if you have the 
mock up site in front of you as you read this):

  A navigation bar on top with the main categories (Lib, App, etc). Each 
  with subcategories (Lib/Networking, etc).

  Each of the main categories has a "home page".  My mock up depics the
  home page of "Library".  The home page only shows the subcategories.

  Selecting a category would produce pages similar to the current ones in 
  RAA, except that the navigation bar would stay. Clicking on "Library" 
  would take you to the Library home page.

  "Recent Updates" is now a right-bar.  It is still very visible, but it 
  no longer inhibits the visibility of the main categories.

Here is the more complete set of categories (Mark, tell me if I got 
something wrong):

1.  Business
       e-commerce
       finance

2.  Data Structures
       Algorithm
       Array   
       Binary  
       Enumerable
       Graph   
       Hash
       Queue
       Stack
       Time
       Tree

3.  Database
       MySQL
       Postgresql
       
4. Development Support
       Benchmark
       CVS
       Compression
       Debugging
       Design Patterns
       Integrated Development Environment
       Internationalization
            I18N
       Operating System Interfaces
            Be
            BSD
            Dos  
            Linux
            Mac
            Solaris
            Windows
       Testing
  
5.  Media
       Audio
       Graphics
       Icons
       MIDI
       Mp3
       Speech

6.  Networking & Web
       Distributed Computing
       Mail and Usenet News
       World Wide Web
          CGI
          Jabber

7.  Science
       Biology
       Math
       Computer Science
       AI   
       Languages
          C 
          Forth
          Lisp
          Lua
          Python
       Physics
       Chemistry

8.  Security
       Cryptography

9. Text Processing
       PDF 
       regular expressions
       yaml

10. User Interfaces
       Fox
       Gtk  
       Qt
       Text (curses, etc.?)
       Tk
       Wx
       X Windows


Cheers,

-- 
Daniel Carrera
Graduate Teaching Assistant.  Math Dept.
University of Maryland.  (301) 405-5137