As a software package, OpenDX is somewhat unique in design. You can approach OpenDX on three levels:

1. As an end-user of an OpenDX program developed by someone else (or by yourself in an earlier session)

2. As a "network" programmer: this is the most common way to use OpenDX

3. As a custom module developer, that is, one who develops and adds entirely new functions to the already rich basic set of OpenDX functionality or as a developer who uses DX libraries to augment other program code you write; this is the least common.

In this class, we'll concentrate on mode (2) above: we'll be learning the OpenDX "network" programming interface, language, and use. The result will be programs that you or others can run, as in mode (1). This class will not cover mode (3) above, since it really is not necessary to write code in traditional languages like C or FORTRAN to get a great deal of benefit from OpenDX. We'll show you where the full documentation for OpenDX is as we proceed; if you are really interested in (3), you'll find that this subject is covered in depth in that documentation.