Journal N3Roaster's Journal: Typica 1.3 Released 1
Typica is the result of an internal data systems project at Wilson's Coffee & Tea which I started several years ago when paper roasting records and spreadsheets were no longer adequate. The first public release (Typica 1.0) came out in 2008 and further development continues. The program can record roasting data, track coffee inventory, save cupping data, and produce reports. Source code and a Windows XP (it might work on more recent versions of Windows, but I have no way to test that, we're a Mac/Linux shop) release of Typica 1.3 is now available. The Mac version and additional documentation will be available soon. Linux users are expected to be able to compile it themselves.
http://www.randomfield.com/programs/typica/
Now, why post about this on Slashdot? Typica is an especially nerdy data logging application. The program is freely available under the MIT license and runs on Mac, Windows, and Linux. It uses PostgreSQL as its data store and a number of abstractions from Qt. The program is written in literate C++ and sets up the user interface and application data flow based on a combination of XML and Javascript. This allows for the rapid development of new features and the creation of custom configurations to meet the needs of other coffee firms.
The cupping session handling is especially unique. A sample can be associated with any annotated point on a roast profile. This makes the program particularly useful for developing new roast profiles as several samples can be pulled at various points in the roast and each of these samples can be added to the cupping session.
Mac version now available. (Score:2)
Update: The Mac download is now also available. It might seem odd that the Mac version is the one that got released last since it's what I use every day at the coffee roaster, but people were asking for the Windows build. Incidentally, Windows is the most time consuming platform to build this on because QtSql or a PostgreSQL driver plugin needs to be compiled. Does anybody know why this doesn't just work out of the box like the Mac release of Qt does?