Fourth Client Meeting, Updates, and Serialization/Deserialization

Hi,

As catchup from last time:
-With the parser complete, serialization and deserialization of raw Canvas-es is next.  This is necessary for saving and loading.
-The parser may not actually be complete; more formatting may be required and there are other issues.
-Had a client meeting.  It went poorly.

The serialization and deserialization is pretty straightforward so far.  It uses a slightly modified version of the standard Java serialization routines.  It's not fully functional (it doesn't reconstruct everything properly yet), but it's in-place and a good start.  Nialls will pass it the actual canvases, and then the real fun will begin: getting it working with "real" data.

The parser is annoying me.  It turns out I actually wrote pure XML parser instead of an HTML parser.  So I'll need to make some *significant* changes.  I'm thinking of resurrecting regular expressions.  I'm dedicating this afternoon/evening to doing this.


We also had our fourth client meeting.  Honestly, I think it went the worst out of all client meetings thus far.

I think a lot of this had to do with the group not being very productive over Spring Break.  I freely admit that I definitely slacked, and I feel bad about it, particularly since my modules were least integrated out of everyone's.

I feel like I didn't get credit for making the serializer/deserializer from Ackley.  Yes, it wasn't fully integrated, but *it worked*.  I also feel like Spring Break ought to be a break.  I know that the reality of it is that work happens over Spring Break and that I'm expected to do things.  But I still think it's problematic to call it a "break" if it really isn't to our society.  Same applies to Christmas Break, for year-long classes.  In the extreme, Summer, for some summer assignments.

So, for next time, the serializer/deserializer, and a revised parser.

Ian