Technical Details
The program
Palmpolitik is specified, designed and implemented by Ronnie van 't Westeinde. Palmpolitik was completely written in pure C. The synchronization conduit was written in C++. The idea for Palmpolitik was born in the summer of 2002, but the actual work started in october 2002. It took 2 months for the initial version and another couple of weeks for the synchronization.The adjudicator algorithm used by Palmpolitik is designed by Lucas Kruijswijk and implemented by Ronnie van 't Westeinde. It is a decision based algorithm and fully passes the Diplomacy Adjudicator Test Cases (also by Lucas). The 4th edition rules (the 2000 rules) are implemented in Palmpolitik. For paradox handling, the Szykman rule is implemented.
History
In the original specification, Palmpolitik was designed as an order entry and map viewer utility. Version 1.0 of Palmpolitik was implemented according to those specifications, except for the importing from and exporting to the memo pad. In a very early version, importing was indeed present, but turned useless once the synchronization with Realpolitik was in place. To save the importing and exporting feature from compatibility problems, it was left out, so it can return later in a judge compatible format.
On the other hand, a number of features which were not in the original design could not be left out. In version 1.1, beaming of orders and games was implemented to allow different Palm models to still enter their orders if the cradle wouldn't fit.
In version 1.2, an adjudicator was added, mainly because the Realpolitik synchronization was not yet released. Version 1.2 was the first stand-alone version that could operate without Realpolitik. This was the time to release Palmpolitik to the internet community.
After we played a game of face to face diplomacy, a bug on 2Mb systems was discovered. Also, the scrolling in zoom mode was not optimal, because the usage of scroll bars took up some valuable screen space and because the scrolling could only be one direction at a time. Both of these were fixed in version 1.2.1.