[Server-devel] EduBlog Revised Project Plan

[Martin Langhoff]

Hi Greg!

On Fri, Jun 6, 2008 at 9:05 AM, Greg Smith (gregmsmi)
<gregmsmi at cisco.com> wrote:
> Thanks to Wad and Martin for uncovering the OS problem!

Yes - that's a pretty important thing. And leads into a second thing
that is tricky - if you want Edublog to work on both infrastructures
(Ceibal's school server and the standard XS) we need some
coordination. Otherwise you'll end up with htings that work only on
one.

> 1 - Tarun gets the three main GUI pages proto-typed and posted for
> comment. Focus on Apache + PHP then XML/RPC call from EduBlog to Blog
> host. Don't worry about the DB right now.

If you go down this path you are turning your back on my
recommendations. I can't really help much, and it will be *much*
harder to get it on the XS.

You are doing some fantastic thinking on the product side of Edublog -
perhaps you could get the programmers discussing the technical aspects
on this list, with me directly? I am more than happy to mentor and
help.

> 3 - Greg will focus on getting in technical synch with Ceibal.

We need to sort out the very tricky  technical details of identity
management on XS and the Ceibal school server. We can all discuss it
via email with the Ceibal team, I would not want it to be mediated (in
other words - don't try to mediate on technical matters unless you are
the programmer writing the code! :-) )

> Re-proofing the customer need, lining up beta testers, and looking for
> backup target customers.

Yes yes and yes to all that.

> Here are the 3 key milestones.
...
> Purpose
> - This will prove the concept of taking an Internet tool (blogger.com)
> and making it usable by kids and manageable by teachers. It will also
> show how to build a "web app" for deployment on  the XS.

And here you have your XS architect telling you: you don't write new
web apps for the XS. To build a "web app" you add take something that
exists, is secure, scalable, solid, maintainable, etc, and you extend
it or tweak it.

Want it *really* easy? Turn this plan into

 - install moodle (trivial!)
 - read through the code of the blog facility
 - add a "forward blog post" feature to moodle's blog (there, you are
ready for early deployments)
 - simplify UI a bit (which we have to do anyway)
 - profit!

the "forward blog post" feature, if well done, can get integrated
upstream. And it's a simple thing - all the needed facilities are in
place, at most we'll need an additional column in a table.

One of the most common rookie programmer errors is to write your own
thing. Easy to get started, impossible to reach the goals. Don't make
this mistake - what we want here is to reach the goal. The "easy
start" is only apparently easy.

In any case, you still want to do it your way, well. I can't stop you,
but my experience is that the end result is very unlikely to meet the
requirements for inclusion on the XS :-/

cheers,



m
-- 
 martin.langhoff at gmail.com
 martin at laptop.org -- School Server Architect
 - ask interesting questions
 - don't get distracted with shiny stuff - working code first
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