So I haven’t posted anything in a long time. Here’s a quick catch up:
Quick interface design can be done with good UML diagrams (because the UI will suck at best if you don’t fully understand the problem domain) and a decent drawing tool like Inkscape. I’m translating the vector drawings in to a Flash mockup, so we’ll see how that goes.
phpmyadmin scares the crap out of me, because it undoes what I have taken pains to do: protect my database from the 1337 haxors roaming the internets. However, I did mitigate the exposure by severely restricting access to the web app through Apache and the rules built in to phpmyadmin. More logs to keep an eye on, I guess. sigh.
Word about my evolving web application is spreading, with people asking for features that are just outside of what I’ve been working on or considering. If I can bust out the next few versions in a reasonable amount of time, some good things might come my way. Right now, it only does time logging for a lab with the next version incorporating more info, i.e., which part of the lab, what class the student is visiting the lab for, etc. The version after that (which may actually be rolled in to the next iteration to save some time) will ask the student which class they are visiting the area for based on their class schedule. I have some political hurdles to get over for that bit, but I worked out how to do it in the shower, where all great ideas come from.
mod_rewrite is soooo awesome, I can’t believe I waited so long to start using it. Hiding web application servers behind Apache is trivial now, and I can fake out the user in to thinking they haven’t left the site when they start using the web app. Which brings me to the next big thing: cherrypy, sqlobject, and mako. Cherrypy is a bare bones web app server, perfect for these little web apps I’ve written lately. Sqlobject makes dealing with the database almost trivial. Mako as the templating engine means I can grab the style sheet, images, and whatever else I need from the original site to integrate the web app in to it almost seamlessly. And it is a real Model View Controller pattern implementation. Splitting up the pieces like that and coding in Python means I can test the pieces and make changes rapidly. Now I just have to remember to write up a quickie rsync script so I can commit changes to the web server. Or go about it a little cleaner and set up subversion on the web server. Yum.
So that’s some of what has been going on lately. Oh, and I’m having to do a last minute change on my master’s program. If I can pull it off, I’ll be done in December of next year. Finally.
Quick interface design can be done with good UML diagrams (because the UI will suck at best if you don’t fully understand the problem domain) and a decent drawing tool like Inkscape. I’m translating the vector drawings in to a Flash mockup, so we’ll see how that goes.
phpmyadmin scares the crap out of me, because it undoes what I have taken pains to do: protect my database from the 1337 haxors roaming the internets. However, I did mitigate the exposure by severely restricting access to the web app through Apache and the rules built in to phpmyadmin. More logs to keep an eye on, I guess. sigh.
Word about my evolving web application is spreading, with people asking for features that are just outside of what I’ve been working on or considering. If I can bust out the next few versions in a reasonable amount of time, some good things might come my way. Right now, it only does time logging for a lab with the next version incorporating more info, i.e., which part of the lab, what class the student is visiting the lab for, etc. The version after that (which may actually be rolled in to the next iteration to save some time) will ask the student which class they are visiting the area for based on their class schedule. I have some political hurdles to get over for that bit, but I worked out how to do it in the shower, where all great ideas come from.
mod_rewrite is soooo awesome, I can’t believe I waited so long to start using it. Hiding web application servers behind Apache is trivial now, and I can fake out the user in to thinking they haven’t left the site when they start using the web app. Which brings me to the next big thing: cherrypy, sqlobject, and mako. Cherrypy is a bare bones web app server, perfect for these little web apps I’ve written lately. Sqlobject makes dealing with the database almost trivial. Mako as the templating engine means I can grab the style sheet, images, and whatever else I need from the original site to integrate the web app in to it almost seamlessly. And it is a real Model View Controller pattern implementation. Splitting up the pieces like that and coding in Python means I can test the pieces and make changes rapidly. Now I just have to remember to write up a quickie rsync script so I can commit changes to the web server. Or go about it a little cleaner and set up subversion on the web server. Yum.
So that’s some of what has been going on lately. Oh, and I’m having to do a last minute change on my master’s program. If I can pull it off, I’ll be done in December of next year. Finally.
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