Kicking It Off

I've been researching both "sources of data" and "platform technologies" in order to anchor a starting point. I've found most of the data I'm interested in and will get into more detail in later posts. The data comes in what I'm categorizing as either easily consumable or highly specialized forms that require additional technologies to work with.

I'm focusing now on the platform side of this effort. A "platform" is the type of device and operating system on which applications execute. For example, an Android tablet, an Apple iPad, and a Windows laptop are platform types.

Typically, applications are platform specific (i.e. they execute only one platform type). Popular, large market applications may have versions that execute on multiple platforms (e.g. Microsoft Office, Garmin Pilot) but are often written in different programming languages due to platform specific tooling. Consequently, cross-platform development technologies do exist to simplify application development, but often fall short in the area of platform-specific features.

For my purpose, I'd like to develop aviation tools for as many platforms as possible without the need to utilize different platform specific tools. In particular, I'm interested in developing native applications on the following platforms:

• Android phones and tablets
• Apple iOS iPhone and iPad
• ARM processors (i.e. Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone, etc.)
• Windows PC
• MacOS

As I like to name applications before I get started (and usually change it later), I've been thinking about a theme. My theme is to use the initials from Mattie Tech (MT) and combining them with the application function. For example, mtFC - Flight Computer would be used for the E6B mobile app, mtFB - Flight Bag for navigation and planning, mtWx - Weather for weather data (also available in mtFB), and mtFIS - Flight Information System for the built-in EFIS.