I am making steady progress. I do expect to get the product out in an early beta release by the end of December. However, it just will not have enough WOW material in it by that time to be ready for a prime time audience.
I have pushed back the official beta release a full month, to the end of January.
Let me tell you what I have thus far:
1. The "copy/paste entries" process is written for the no-download users.
The idea is to get the race date and horse names in so that you can handicap.
2. For those entering data, the mechanism for storing every race, every horse, and every paceline is written. As you can imagine, this was a monstrous undertaking but will ultimately save you a huge amount of work.
The actual entry of the data is on schedule for next week.
3. The structure for supporting Par Times and class levels is finished. (You can imagine where those pars originate.)
About the Software
There are several key things to know about this software. Based upon its name you would (logically) assume that the
Pace Makes the Race software is primarily a Pace Handicapping tool. There will be a pace module to end all pace modules.
But the program is not really
just about pace.
More than anything else, it is designed to be a
Super Modeling program.
Think of a grid with rows and columns for data - like a spreadsheet. Imagine that you have control over what goes into a particular column.
While you do not have the ability to write formulas, you do have the ability insert, delete and change columns database-wide.
Of course, perhaps you're not really interested in doing this and just want to take the default installation of columns. You can do that - choosing from a number of different column setups already created for you.
In reality, there are actually 80 columns...
... The first 50 for Previous Starters and the last 30 for FTS and Foreign Starters.
Each column is linked to a Handicapping Object.
For those of you seeing the complexity level going up, rest assured that it is only going up for the programmer, not the user.
Special Note: If you are REALLY looking for
The Simple Solution, skip the rest of this because it will not be stuff that you use.
Factors
In terms of linking back to the data, all factors are populated from
The Master Factor List. (Note that this is not the same list that is in HSH. It is actually
more extensive.) There are also
Custom Factors, created by the user.
Introducing... Widgets
What's a "Widget?"
A Widget is a screen/system (written by the programmer) that supports a special task. For example, suppose you want to "do something" with speed ratings. More specifically, you want to take the last 6 speed ratings on dirt tracks in sprint races, sort them from highest to lowest, and create a factor that outputs as "1st-2nd-3rd-FrontHalf-RearHalf" (i.e. 1-2-3-4-5) into a
Custom Factor slot.
There is a Widget that allows you to do this.
There are many kinds of Widgets. For example, there are Widgets for Automatic Paceline Selection, developing factors from the Earnings Box, and a bunch of others. Many Widgets come with an option to walk the manual-entry user through inputting the data in by hand.
Custom Widgets
In the future, when someone says, "I'd really like someone to program a system for me..." there will now be a
relatively easy answer: A new Widget!
Suppose you want a system that looks at a whole bunch of different things and weights them together into a score. (Like an object except that the factors are somewhat complicated.)
You request for me to write you a widget that supports what you want and populates it from the data. (Yes, there would be a cost but it would be relatively small compared to hiring a programmer to write an entire piece of software for you.)
Widgets can be public (i.e. everyone gets them) or private (only available to in your installation).
So, this is why I will be a month late.
Happy Holidays to Everyone,
Dave Schwartz
PS: Emails will begin again next week. I have great news to share.
