On June 29
th I gave a demo of ICE at an event
called [The Successful
Repository](http://www.apsr.edu.au/successful/successful.htm).
Andrew Treloar, who says he is in charge of generating acronyms for
projects named after pointy objects ([ARROW](http://arrow.edu.au/) and
[DART](http://dart.edu.au/)), asked me a couple of questions. It happens
that Andrew is the program chair for the AusWeb conference, where I gave
my [paper](http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw06/papers/refereed/sefton/)about
ICE.
AusWeb paper sessions are a bit unusual – instead of everyone talking
for half an hour or so on their paper, with a few minutes for questions
if you're lucky, presentations are much shorter. Three or four
presenters talk for 10 minutes or so each, and then form a sort of a
panel, and discussion starts. I have seen this work really well.
So for my presentation on my ICE
[paper](http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw06/papers/refereed/sefton/) at Ausweb
I thought I might do a demonstration of ICE, using this very document.
You can see the final presentation [on my
site](http://ptsefton.com/files/ausweb06.slide.htm) . It is generated
from the same source document as this blog post.
By the way, ICE is now using a system called
[Slideous](http://goessner.net/articles/slideous/slideous.html) for web
presentations which is apparently inspired by
[Slidy](http://www.w3.org/Talks/Tools/Slidy/). Bron Dye of the RUBRIC
project did the work to set up Slideous ICE templates.
If you're reading this that means I was not torn to pieces by other
AusWeb delegates.
# About this demo
The demo will:
1. Show how I use ICE to write multipurpose documents.
2. Show-off ICE's new slide [presentation
features](http://ptsefton.com/files/ausweb06.slide.htm).
(which I wrote about
[earlier](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2006/05/23/presenting_slidy_ice))
3. Answer Andrew Treloar's questions.
And any more questions that came up...
#
Andrew's questions
# Why Python?
ICE is written in Python because:
1. The Java programmers in our team at USQ were not confident of
writing a cross-platform application.
2. Python ships with OpenOffice.org.
At this stage we use a different Python version, but some ICE code
could be used with OOo in future...
3. Python can be compiled into stand alone executables for Mac OS X and
Windows.
4. Python has all the libraries we need.
# I don't write courseware. Do I need ICE?
I use ICE to look after my stuff (that is back it up, and keep track of
document versions).
Which stuff?
Home
: - This weblog.
- A couple of book-proposals.
- Admin stuff like tax spreadsheets.
# More stuff in ICE: RUBRIC project
- Board documents and meeting packages.
(book and web versions)
- Technical reports
- Papers like my [AusWeb
paper](http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw06/papers/refereed/sefton/)
Complete with automated link footnotes
- Administrivia like forms
- Coming soon – RUBRIC [web site](http://rubric.edu.au/).
# More stuff in ICE: ICE project
- All the doco for ICE
- The ICE [web site](http://ice.usq.edu.au/).
#
More discussion from the AusWeb session
The two other papers in the session with mine
([RikWik](http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw06/papers/refereed/roe/paper.html)
and
[DotWikIE](http://ausweb.scu.edu.au/aw06/papers/refereed/rees/paper.html))
were wiki systems, so there was a bit of discussion about 'horses for
courses'; how we need to have a variety of systems for different kinds
of documents. A word processor is useful for longer documents, while
Wikis are useful for note-style communal pages, such as the contacts
page we keep for our proejct.
# But how do you enforce high quality?
A fair bit of discussion was about how to keep standards high when ICE
does not do content validation.
- ICE is an enabler not a constrainer.
- An XML system with a validating editor did not catch on with USQ
lecturers.
- A word processor based system seems more likely to succeed, but
cannot do strict validation.
- Schematron validation could be used to help 'health check' content.
- A strict system can be very costly when exceptions are needed.
# More on quality
- Quick feedback via automated XHTML formatting teaches people to [use
styles](http://ptsefton.com/blog/2005/03/02/use_styles).
- Complete course templates including the all major elements that
should be there help most people to do an acceptable job.
- USQ still has editorial services available for distance materials.
# Image handling in ICE?
ICE deals with bit map images like this JPEG of me and Spensa...
... but vector graphics remain a huge problem for word processing in
general. SVG support is missing from both Microsoft Word and Writer.