Re: Conversational Programming

>An argument in favor of shop floor programming in the short-run
>production environment is a person can program the part the way he's
>comfortable running it. We all have our own "style" and generally
>I've found letting the operator do it their own way is better for
>through-put.

>My $.02 on the subject, and reasons why I don't think any of
>the "hobby" class controllers will suit my method of running a shop.

>Doug

Sorry to jump in a couple days after this was posted, but Ive been moving to
a new house the last couple days and busy.

This statement hits my interest in conversation programming exactly. There
is a class of work for which this style is vastly superior to CAM/gcode.
Clearly if one is doing 3D mold making a CAM solution is the only way. But I
make models for fun, mostly from old magazine articles. There are no CAD
drawings, no engineering department, just me and an old page out of some
magazine.

The parts I make are genrally simple as machined parts go.

I wish there were a better name than 'conversatonl programming' because that
term has been used for to many different approaches. In the last version of
my program I used the name 'iMill' as in "interactive Mill" . I think this
better describes the process, interacting directly with the Mill through a
single software interface to make parts.

Now that Ive completed ny house move I hope to have time again to get to
work on this. I talked with Ray Henry at NAMES about building such an
interface into his backplot structure and it looks like I can do it. As soon
as I get a current version from Ray I will get on it.

ron