My crackpot invention

[SoupDragon]

I have been working on this idea for a new programming language for the past 4 years or so in my spare time.

It's called the Catwalk system. I had the original idea about 12 years ago but didn't have sufficient experience to expand on it.

Read my introduction/FAQ:
http://www.atji89.dsl.pipex.com/CatwalkPublic/Pitch.doc

Trouble is, I don't know what to do with it. I have already been advised that it would be very difficult to patent... I want to make a living from it somehow.

[where did my id go?]

that doc fails to say anything that will convince anyone. lots of 'it will' etc
and lots of glossing over everything. No reference to any infrastructures, history, etc.

I can think of loads of similar projects that went nowhere. From that document I do not have any confidence that you have the knowledge or ability to make this any different.

Are you Niall ?

[SoupDragon]

No, who is Niall?

The problem is that I want to protect my IPR. Unless I decide to open souce it, I can't actually explain how it will work to anyone unless they sign an NDA... Therein lies the problem.

I don't know of any similar projects. Got any links?

[where did my id go?]

No, who is Niall?

A 'famous' contributor to cuk / developer of the OS to end OS's.
look here -> http://www.nedprod.com/index.html
Although the recent stuff seems fairly sane.

The problem is that I want to protect my IPR. Unless I decide to open souce it, I can't actually explain how it will work to anyone unless they sign an NDA... Therein lies the problem.

That is a problem.

I don't know of any similar projects. Got any links?

choose almost any case tool set. Im out of date but im sure ief, iew, framework-1, oracle*case, rational rose, etc, etc, etc are still around in some form

there are lots of gui development tools that aim to hide the nitty gritty from the end user, some from the early cobol generators, through to stuff to develop gui tools. Im sure there was a reasonable tool for corba development - but I forget.
bytecode generators and java ? Old hat - I was writing bytecode systems for user development within complex design packages 20 years ago.

you are not explaining what you are offering that is any different to anything that has gone before. It sounds a bit web2 ish to me.


Oh, and in an effort to comply with the cuk -> cc.net migration


sorry, not allowed!

[SoupDragon]

Heh, I will give his website a read sometime.

Oh OK, I have worked with IEF (yuck), I just never put it in the same category

I don't consider Catwalk to be a CASE tool...
1) It is not a code generator. Once you have built the models and validated them, they run without requiring any further compiling or code tweaking. What it generates internally is not sequential code like in an exe file or a java bytecode file.

The advantage is that you don't have to understand what is going on behind the scenes, it is not simply masking complexity like a CASE tool, it is specifying all the required program logic in a different, more efficient way.

2) It is not a loose framework which requires integration and getting all the bits talking to each other. Persistence of data and scalability is built in without the programmer having to give any thought to it. For instance, the programmer won't know or care which particular fragment of processing logic will be executed in which thread. They aren't bothered if a data record is in memory or on disk. If a data item doesn't last for long, it will probably never hit the disk. The system will decide where to put it. Another side effect of the way it is structured is that the system will swap out bits of application and data in a more intelligent way than most systems handle virtual memory - all the related parts will be kept together and loaded together without programmer intervention.

Sorry for the long read. It took me ages to type it because the sleeves on my jacket are too long.

[VectraMan]

For instance, the programmer won't know or care which particular fragment of processing logic will be executed in which thread.

What the Intel thing that does that? I forget.

It also sounds a little like Occam.

They aren't bothered if a data record is in memory or on disk. If a data item doesn't last for long, it will probably never hit the disk. The system will decide where to put it. Another side effect of the way it is structured is that the system will swap out bits of application and data in a more intelligent way than most systems handle virtual memory - all the related parts will be kept together and loaded together without programmer intervention.

There must be a lot of things that work that way.

Sorry, not being negative. If you're serious about this, I'd make it open source but make sure you stay heavily involved. Then if it takes off you can ride the gravy train with books and appearances and occasional nonsense statements that make the headlines (like Tim Berners Lee does).

Nobody is going to buy into a new proprietary development system, unless of course your name is really Bill Gates.

[lilelvis2000]

Visual Programming went the way of dinosaurs. my Masters thesis was on visual programming, I even developed my own progamming system based on FP. There used to be conferences, newsgroups, journals and plenty of research papers. All the rage during the 90's and now all pretty well dead.

I wish you good luck, but I fear you've missed the boat.

[SoupDragon]

I realise that what I'm proposing has similarities to a lot of other technologies that have gone before... however none of them had all of the good features combined. They all must've had some kind of limitation otherwise they'd still be big today.

Only a few elements of my system are completely brand new. The rest drew inspiration from SSADM structured design, from object oriented design, from a LISP variant called Miranda and from Java.

I take the point about open sourcing it... if it is really as good as I say it is then I should be able to make a living from it even if it's free... If I do, I'll set up a sorceforge entry and you can have access to the documents and be better able to tear it to pieces

[VectraMan]

Miranda!

(Runs screaming to the hills.)

Invented by a guy at Kent University who looked like Penfold from Dangermouse.

[Bluebird]

you can't patent software - it comes under copyright [ of which there is no register as with Patents & Trademarks ] - you need to get it published in the public domain oe better still sell to a multi national.


Ring the UKIPO for advice...