Sunday, July 20, 2008

Micromouse Maze Viewer and Lessons Learnt

I've created a prototype for a Micromouse maze file viewer/editor. I've uploaded it with some details to the Lightsoft 'more stuff' page.

Two comments about writing the actual utility:

1. It's a fairly small program - and the basics only took me a couple of evenings. But it still took a couple of weeks of evenings before it was in a fit state to release to other people including tiny features which I thought were pretty essential plus some basic clean-up ('polish'). Even with this work it's still got some rough edges and yucky bits in places.

It sort of goes to show that the effort to do a general release of any program is not tiny.

2. I've now got a to-do list of clean up items and new features longer than the original specification! At first glance this appears rather strange but it shows how a relatively simple project can 'grow arms and legs' and take on 'a life of it's own'.

Of course I still want feedback. Without feedback you can't really know what's good and bad and what needs changing.

Still, since this started as a side project, I think I'll leave any changes for a few weeks and get on with the main robot code and LWC web gauge integration.

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