GasLaws History

This is a complete history of the GasLaws project. It is a fairly long and extensive history, even the project is barely 4 months old. Also included with the history is a list of persons who deserve some credit. The credit information can also be found on the About pages.

History

8/15/01
Project begun with intent of being a well rounded program.
8/21/01
First version of the project is completed. Full of bugs. Errors in some functions, such as those of Boyle's Law, that cause
crashes of the program.
8/30/01
Fatal error in the Boyle's Law functions removed, program runs well to an extent. Version 1.0 is finished.
9/7/01
Work on Version 2.0 begun. Intent is to remove bugs, improve performance, and increase capability.
9/8/01
Solved catching problem, where the program would terminate after the successful completion of a function. Also integrated
a conversion algorithm that would catch any Celsius measurement and convert it to Kelvin. Also fixed an error in the
function's return by changing the return value.
9/9/01
Version 2.0 completed. Work started on Version 2.1. Menu system modified slightly for looks. Version 2.1 completed and
compiled with success.
10/1/01
Version 2.5 completed. CSV file generation working. Now creates 2 CSV files that can be imported to Excel to map the trend of large amounts of data for every law.
10/12/01
TI-89/92+ Versions currently under way. Still learning many of the intricacies of TIGCC, the calculators' native C language. Working on the graphics generation with sprites, which is something new for me. The C++ version is also in progress, and I'm thinking it will be the version that holds constants because of its support of function overloading. I expect the C++ version to be done sometime soon, since I can recycle much of my C code.
10/25/01
At the moment, I have scrapped the TI-89/92+ versions because of some serious troubles with the www.ticalc.org website. Due to this, I can no longer get any help, nor can I get the necessary files and libraries that I need to complete the project. The console C++ version has been put on the back burner for the new Visual C++ version.
10/30/01
The Visual C++ prototype is complete, and works only slightly. Still cannot figure out how to change floating points to AnsiStrings. Seeking outside help from Inprise programmer community.
11/10/01
Even though I'm busy, I have finally got the program to a semi-functional state. The Boyle's Law section now works, but I have yet to implement error catching, or any conversion algorithms. Started a related periodic table program, but will wait on that one for a short while until GasLaws is finished.
11/15/01
Started creating web-based help pages because the nature of creating the tutorials and whatnot is just incredibly huge.
11/18/01
Added all error messages and the Celsius<->Kelvin converter. Now working on adding the error handling into the working portions of the program, and finishing adding functionality to all the sections.
11/21/01
Setup *.ini file to save all setup information such as what page to keep displayed and the various states of the tray-icon control.
11/25/01
Still working on adding help pages. I realize that I am still at a loss on how to set up files to make a running set of data to map trends and so forth. Also working out how to add the Mole portion of the gas laws to the program and also how to incorporate the help files into the program.

Credits

The programming and design was done by myself, James Hansen, but I have to give credit to those people who helped me along wheteher it be inspirational or technical.

Greg Perry - Author of Absolute Beginners Guide to C

Richard Heathfield, Lawrence Kirby, et al. - Authors of C Unleashed, a very good book with good concepts on program ability, etc.

Jesse Liberty - Author of Sam's Teach Your Self C++ in 21 days.

Wayne (Pete) Hansen- For buying my compiler and my development environment and giving me a computer when I was young.

Mr. Jay (Tim) Kelly - For teaching me this Chemistry mumbo-jumbo in the first place, and beating up early versions of the program.

Mr. Joe Perusich - For getting me started in this programming stuff with a broken Cisco Series 2500 router.

The good people at Inprise^® for their Borland C++ Builder 5^® developer environment. If it wasn't for their RAD (Rapid Application Development), I'd still be mired in the development of the look of this silly thing.