Network  Places: Workflow and Development

 Project management and rapid prototyping are two more advantages of MOO. When combined with the advanced client features just described, one obtains a groupware system well-suited for development and management purposes.

 On AstroVR, David Nichols designed a Post-It note system (pictured above) for sending other users quick notes; these notes then appear immediately on the destination users' screens. Another tool shows who else is around at any given time (the list possibly restricted only to the other users in a particular development team). Additional tools to distribute project work among the project team, schedulers, planners, and so on are easily created and used in the MOO virtual reality.

 The powerful but easy-to-learn MOO programming language, together with a graphical programming editor, facilitates the rapid prototyping of ideas. For example, as a beginning programmer I learned the MOO programming language and Skyview command set, and wrote the Skyview interface and shared session tools in a very short period of five weeks. To accomplish the same goals in C or C++ would take most experienced programmers several months of development effort.

 Complicated GUI and networking concepts can also first be developed in-MOO, and then (once the main details have been sketched out and the feasibility demonstrated) ported to another application environment, such as Java. Rapid application development played an important role in the early stages of AstroVR, enabling us to bootstrap the system as work progressed.  Alternatively, the MOO can serve as a collaborative environment using application sharing to coordinate client-side development tools such as version control systems and integrated development environments.