Implementation Ideas

• Sounds ambitious ...How can it be done?
• Maybe Java is the answer!
  • Java is a product of
    Sun Microsystems.
  • It is a small, robust, object-oriented
    programming language,
  • Tools already exist to build a GUI of this sort:
    • Application Programmer's Interface (API)
      provided free by Sun with developer's kit.
    • Huge variety of classes appearing on Web.
  • Primary advantage for present application
    is that it is platform-independent.
    • Very useful for designing a GUI to be
      run on a variety of systems!
  • Many other features could be useful:
    • Multithreaded,
    • Web-aware,
    • Can link to native C methods,
    • Can load over the Internet (or locally),
      • Java's present claim to fame.

• Consider as a simple example
  ``Steady State Fusion Reactor Demo''
  • Work done in support of
    Internet Plasma Physics Education eXperience (IPPEX),
  • Is a 0-D fusion power balance calculation,
    • User selects n<sub>e</sub>, P<sub>aux</sub>, and B<sub>T</sub>,
    • (Machine size and confinement time
      taken from BPX)
    • Pushes ``START'' and fusion Q is computed,
    • Results reported graphically in
      device cross section.
    • Density and limits have been incorporated.
    • Sounds will be added ...
  • More ambitious projects planned.
    • Eventual goal of IPPEX: make TFTR
      data accessible to middle-school kids.
• See no barriers to implementing
  DEGAS 2 GUI in Java!