User:IIITenth/TRACE (computer program)/BlakeDecker003 Peer Review

General info
(IIITenth)
 * Whose work are you reviewing?


 * Link to draft you're reviewing:TRACE (computer program) It seems as though there is no draft in place. Just the article.
 * Link to the current version of the article (if it exists):TRACE (computer program)

(Note to Professor: Since I was registered late, I was not assigned a peer review and decided to assign myself this one. While this article was assigned to someone else, it seems they have no fulfilled the review so I will take on that role. And because I was registered late, I couldn't respond to any peer feedback, so this is all I am able to provide, please understand.)

Evaluate the drafted changes
What is the most interesting/informative part of the draft?

The first paragraph, the lead section is most of what the article currently has to offer. While I don't see a draft in place, I will try to consider the article as some form of a draft as there is not a lot to go off of here. What I found to be interesting about it was how it ran on an IBM 7090 computer, which is a form of hardware that I would like to see further elaboration on but the lead itself works well enough. It gives me enough info for me to understand what we are talking about here, but there's a lot of potential for more depth. It gives us the company that designed the software as well as a year of release and where the system was programmed.

Where are you most interested but not fulfilled? In other words, where do you want more information?

Near the endpoint of the article, it states "As of 2013, TRACE is still used by the U.S. Government and some of its technical contractors". I'm actually very interested on this part and I would like to see some elaboration here. Tell us "why" it's used today by the U.S. Government even though it's from the 60's. Tell us what makes it so reliable that there's almost no need for new software and machinery that can possibly give us greater precision today. It's such an interesting thing that the Government would use such ancient software and hardware rather than getting a newer system. Some elaboration there would be great.

What seems like it should be moved to another subsection of the entry?

The statement "When Satellite Tool Kit's high-precision orbit propagator and parameter and coordinate frame transformations underwent an Independent Verification and Validation effort in 2000, TRACE v2.4.9 was the standard against which STK was compared" feels pretty out of place for where it was put. I think that there should be a History Section to this article which there isn't, but if there was then this line should be placed somewhere in there. Instead this statement was crammed unfittingly into the lead section which I find to be very unnecessary. Add a History Segment, and talk about the machines that came prior to it, and tie it into that statement.

Is there a new subsection that you think might need to be added?

I think there should be two subsections. The one I mentioned previously, History of the computer program. The reason for that is we should talk about the programs that may have predated this, or the development behind the software and hardware itself. Stuff like that is very important to understanding the background of this computer program, and it's a good avenue to talk about why it is used today. The next section I would personally add would be the hardware that runs the software, and how the software functions itself. I am a big fan of hardware, I take apart consoles and build PC's as a hobby, so it would be very interesting to see some info on the hardware that makes it possible to run the system. And the software as well, tell us how it functions and why it's so reliable.