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Making links so that it all hangs together
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@@ -13,27 +13,32 @@ Justified text is hard to read:
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https://designshack.net/articles/mobile/the-importance-of-designing-for-readability/
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https://designforhackers.com/blog/justify-text-html-css/
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-->
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<h2>History in review</h2>
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<h2>Early history</h2>
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<p>
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Over 32 years, CUCC has developed methods for handling such information. Refinements in data
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Over 42 years, CUCC has developed methods for handling such information. Refinements in data
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management were made necessary by improved quantity and quality of survey; but refinements in
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data management also helped to drive those improvements. The first CUCC Austria expedition, in
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1976, produced only Grade 1 survey for the most part (ref <a href="http://expo.survex.com/years/1977/report.htm">
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Cambridge Underground 1977 report</a>). In
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Cambridge Underground 1977 report</a>).
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<p>In
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the 1980s, the use of programmable calculators to calculate survey point position from compass,
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tape, and clinometer values helped convince expedition members to conduct precise surveys of
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every cave encountered. Previously, such work required hours of slide rule or log table work. On
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several expeditions, such processing was completed after the expedition by a FORTRAN program
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running on shared mainframe time. BASIC programs running on personal computers took over with
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the release of the BBC Micro and then the Acorn A4.
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the release of the BBC Micro and then the Acorn A4. A full history of this period is described in
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<a href="c21bs.html">Taking Expo Bullshit into the 21st Century</a> - a story of the data management system up to 1996.
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<h3>Survex - cave surveying</h3>
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<p>In the 1990s, Olly Betts and Wookey began
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work on "<a href="http://www.survex.com">Survex</a>", a
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work on "<a href="getsurvex.html">Survex</a>", a
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program in C for the calculation and 3-D visualization of centerlines, with
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intelligent loop closure processing. Julian Todd's Java program "Tunnel" facilitated the
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production of attractive, computerized passage sketches from Survex centerline data and scanned
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hand-drawn notes.
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hand-drawn notes.
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A <a href="survexhistory96.htm">history of survex</a> article covering the period 1988-1996 was published in Cambridge Underground 1996.
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<h3>Initial cave data management</h3>
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<p>Along with centrelines and sketches, descriptions of caves were also affected by improvements
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in data management. In a crucial breakthrough, Andrew Waddinton introduced the use of the
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nascent markup language HTML to create an interlinked, navigable system of descriptions. Links
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@@ -53,12 +58,14 @@ webpages from data files reduced the need for repetitive manual HTML coding. Cen
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of all caves in a large .CSV file with a cave on each row made the storage of new information
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more straightforward.
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<h3>Version control</h3>
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<p>Another important element of this system was version control. The entire data structure was
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stored initially in a Concurrent Version System repository, and later migrated to
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Subversion. Any edits to the spreadsheets which caused the scripts to fail, breaking the
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Subversion [<em>now using a <a href="onlinesystems.html#mercurial">DVCS</a> in 2019</em>].
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Any edits to the spreadsheets which caused the scripts to fail, breaking the
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website, could be easily reversed.
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<h3>Other types of data</h3>
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<p>However, not all types of data could be stored in spreadsheets or survey files. In order a
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display descriptions on the webpage for an individual cave, the entire description, written in
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HTML, had to be typed into a spreadsheet cell. A spreadsheet cell makes for an extremely awkward
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@@ -84,7 +91,7 @@ had an individual system for storing QMs. Without a standard system, it was some
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how to correctly enter data.
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<p><em>From "<a href="../../troggle/docsEtc/troggle_paper.odt" download>
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Troggle: a novel system for cave exploration information management</a>", by Aaron Curtis, CUCC.</em>
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Troggle: a novel system for cave exploration information management</a>", by Aaron Curtis, CUCC [with some additions]</em>
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<hr />
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<h2>History in summary</h2>
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