IRC log of #schooltool for Monday, 2008-01-14

*** aelkner has joined #schooltool00:34
*** nitromaster has joined #schooltool02:07
*** subir has joined #schooltool08:35
*** subir has quit IRC10:27
*** didymo has quit IRC11:31
*** Fujitsu has joined #schooltool11:51
*** Fujitsu_ has joined #schooltool12:03
*** Aiste has joined #schooltool12:09
*** Fujitsu has quit IRC12:20
*** Fujitsu_ has quit IRC12:21
*** mgedmin has joined #schooltool13:11
*** subir has joined #schooltool13:25
*** ignas has joined #schooltool14:04
*** jinty has joined #schooltool15:35
*** jinty has quit IRC15:40
*** jinty has joined #schooltool15:41
*** jinty has quit IRC15:51
*** jinty has joined #schooltool15:51
*** jinty_ has joined #schooltool16:00
*** jinty has quit IRC16:00
*** jinty has joined #schooltool16:09
*** subir has quit IRC16:11
*** jinty__ has joined #schooltool16:19
*** jinty_ has quit IRC16:19
*** ignas has quit IRC16:19
*** mgedmin has quit IRC16:19
*** Aiste has quit IRC16:19
*** ignas has joined #schooltool16:20
*** mgedmin has joined #schooltool16:20
*** Aiste has joined #schooltool16:20
*** jinty has quit IRC16:26
*** jinty has joined #schooltool16:28
th1aGood morning all.16:29
ignashi16:30
th1aignas, aelkner, jinty, Lumiere.16:30
aelknerhey16:30
th1aToday is a snow day here in Providence.16:30
aelkneryou didn't send a note this time, so i was wondering if we were meeting16:30
aelknerhow many incheds did you get?16:31
th1aIt is still coming down.16:31
aelkneramazing, we didn't get a drop here16:31
aelkneror a flak, i should say16:32
aelknerflake16:32
th1aSo, tell us about your first week at SLA, aelkner.16:33
aelknerit was a very productive wee,k16:33
aelkneri got schooltool up and running there and demoed it16:34
aelknerwe got the rubycas server up and running16:34
aelknerbut we had a really weird problem signing on16:34
th1aSigning on via?16:35
aelkneri had to put traces in the ruby code til i figured out what went wrong16:35
aelkneroh, they have a login page16:35
aelknerthat will be the page that all apps get redirected to16:35
aelknerwhen we have the individual apps hooked up16:35
th1aOh, right.16:35
th1aYou actually log directly into the CAS server.16:36
th1aI forgot.16:36
aelknerright16:36
aelknerso rubycas-server uses something called ActiveRecord16:36
aelknera ruby equivalent to python's SQLRecord16:36
th1aIndeed.  It is one of the cornerstones of Rails.16:36
aelkneror i forget what Microsoft's is called16:37
aelknerwell, get this16:37
*** jinty has quit IRC16:37
*** jinty__ has quit IRC16:37
aelknerthe internals of ActiveRecord assume that if your table has a co9lumn named 'type'16:37
*** jinty has joined #schooltool16:38
aelknerthat it is an 'inheritence' column16:38
th1aIs there a mailing list for RubyCAS?16:38
aelknerdon't know yet16:38
aelknerso, it was choking on SLA's user table16:38
th1ahttp://groups.google.com/group/rubycas-server16:38
ignasth1a: there is a google code project16:38
aelkneri did find the google code project16:39
aelkneranyway, i didn't want to have to change rubycas-server code if i could avoid it16:39
aelknerand i didn;t want to change the user table16:39
aelkneras i'm sure there's plenty of code in moodle or drupal that depended on that column being there16:40
aelknerso instead16:40
th1aSo you wouldn't be able to just add the table?16:40
aelkner?16:40
aelkneri created a view16:40
aelknercalled login16:40
aelknerthat selected the username and cleartext colums from the user table16:40
aelknerand configured rubycas to use that view instead16:41
aelknerand it worked!16:41
th1aOK.  So you can log in now?16:41
aelkneryes16:41
th1aExcellent.16:41
aelknernext step is to get moodle and drupal redirecting to it16:42
aelkneri will start on that today16:42
aelknerwith Franky's help, of course16:42
th1aRight.16:42
aelknerAnd i'll be meeting with Marcie this week16:43
aelknerto discuss in detail what they need done there outside of single-signon16:43
aelknerso that's all i have to report16:44
th1aOK, I think we're off to a good start, especially in working with Franky.  That's important.16:44
aelknerhe gets busy with the students often16:45
aelknerso that's partly going to put it on me to get a lot of this working16:45
aelknerbut i don't mind16:45
aelknerand, i will get as much help from him as i can16:45
*** nitromaster has quit IRC16:46
aelknerand i enjoy working with him16:46
*** jinty has quit IRC16:46
th1aNonetheless, it is still helpful.16:46
th1aOK, ignas?16:47
ignasnot too much new things this week16:47
ignasgot access to the schooltool server16:47
ignasand was playing with buildbot most of the time16:47
*** jinty has joined #schooltool16:47
ignashad to get schooltool.ldap building on a 64 bit machine for that16:47
ignaslater i have made an experimental split16:48
ignasto refactor schooltool.gradebook and schooltool.requirements into a separate egg16:48
ignaswhich seems to be working16:48
ignasi'd continue that way with lyceum and packages i am working on schooltool.lyceum.gradebook + schooltool.lyceum.attendance16:48
ignasbut buildbot version available on edgy does not support bzr16:49
ignasi have build packages for gutsy16:49
ignasso that our slave could work with bzr branches16:49
ignas"\built"16:49
th1aWhich server is running edgy?16:50
ignastigris16:50
ignasschooltool.org16:50
ignasour buildbot master16:50
ignasso i can't build+test packages that are in bzr at the moment16:50
ignasbecause I don't have any edgy machines16:50
ignasto build a new version of buildbot deb16:51
ignasand schooltool.org acts weirdly if I try installing build-essentials16:51
th1aHm.16:51
ignasand build-dep's for buildbot16:51
ignasit wants to remove a whole bunch of packages16:51
th1ajinty: Were we going to update schooltool.org?16:52
th1aPast edgy?16:52
th1aI can't remember where we are in with that.16:52
ignasand without automated releases tracking new eggs would be very problematic for all the users/testers16:52
th1aWe do have demo.schooltool.org which isn't doing anything at the moment.16:53
ignasas for lyceum - they found a bug in our navigation menu permissions (ouch)16:55
ignaswhich i have fixed immediately16:56
ignasand i am working on some improvements to calendar views16:56
ignasremoving the "TT" "Cal" thingie16:56
*** jinty has quit IRC16:56
ignasbecause "everyone" get's confused by what it means16:56
th1aYes.16:56
ignasand why would they care16:56
ignasthat part should have been left to the "More..." overlay view16:56
ignasrather than for the front page16:56
*** jinty has joined #schooltool16:57
ignasseems like jinty is having problems with his network16:57
th1ahi again jinty.16:57
th1aignas: Did you think more about what your development goal for the hardy release is?16:58
ignasyes, i am going for the clean up some "when you have more terms than 1" issues16:58
ignasand package up the new gradebook and attendance16:59
ignasto work without lyceum16:59
ignasthat's why I have started working on overlays16:59
ignasbecause they are one of the most visible issues16:59
ignaswith multiple terms having separate sets of sections16:59
th1aOverlays?17:00
ignasthe list is showing all the sections you are an instructor for in the select overlay box17:00
th1aOh, right.17:00
ignasso if you spend 3 terms lecturing you will have 3x sections17:01
ignaswhich might be "less than optimal"17:01
th1aYes.17:02
th1aI just wasn't sure if there wasn't some additional Zope terminology in play.17:02
th1a"Skins," "overlays," etc.17:02
ignasyeah, it's easy to confuse the terms17:03
ignasas for some near plans17:03
ignasi am thinking of dropping libxml2 dependency17:03
ignasfrom schooltool17:03
ignasto make it play better with eggs buildout and cando17:03
ignasthen move schooltool.dashboard into a separate package17:04
th1aI guess we don't use libxml2 THAT many places.17:04
ignasno, it will be easy enough to replace it with lxml17:04
th1alxml is much better.17:04
ignaswhich gives one small advantage - not crashing17:04
ignasthen i'll add a schooltool.legacy_app package for all our functional tests17:05
ignasthat want whole old school application17:05
ignaswith attendance, gradebook, etc.17:05
th1aYou still have the underlying dependency on libxml2 though.17:05
ignasso the packages would still be tested17:05
ignaswithout schooltool depending on all the auxilary eggs17:05
ignasunderlying?17:06
th1aThe C library.17:06
th1alxml still uses that, right?17:06
*** jinty_ has joined #schooltool17:06
ignaswell - lxml is using it, but lxml will use the system one17:07
th1aI guess I'm not sure of what the difference is at this point.17:08
ignaswell - we don't have to build our own libxml2 in buildouts17:09
ignaswhich we do at the moment to get working libxml2 bindings17:09
th1aAh.17:10
*** jelkner has joined #schooltool17:10
th1aHm.  But lxml doesn't require building your own?17:10
th1aDoes it just have more robust hooks or something?17:10
th1ajelkner: Are you going to EduCon?17:10
ignasyes it hooks into the library without any external C bindings i think17:11
ignasthere is no libxml2 egg17:11
th1aYes, nobody uses libxml2 anymore if they can avoid it.17:12
ignas:)17:13
th1aI tried going back.  It was painful.17:14
jelknerth1a: yes17:14
jelknerand I may be bringing others with me17:14
th1aCool.17:14
jelknerhow could I miss it?17:14
*** jinty has quit IRC17:15
jelknerth1a: is the meeting over?17:15
th1aNo.17:15
*** jinty_ has quit IRC17:15
th1aDo you have anything to contribute, jelkner?17:15
jelkneryes17:15
jelkneri wanted to talk about pycon17:16
*** jinty has joined #schooltool17:16
th1aYes, getting that set up is on the top of my to-do list.17:16
jelknerit looks like we will be sending philip17:16
jelknerhe wants to go17:16
jelknerand we want to send him17:16
aelknerit's spelled fifip17:16
aelknerfilip17:16
jelkneryup, my bad17:17
jelkneraelkner also told me chris carrie has been checking in some code17:17
jelknerwhat about andrew?17:17
*** jinty has quit IRC17:17
th1aHe's done a little work and is interested in continuing/doing more.17:17
jelknerso filip, andrew, and chris have all continued working?17:18
*** jinty has joined #schooltool17:19
th1aTo a small degree.  Have any of them done a lot?17:19
jelknerignas?17:19
jelkneraelkner?17:19
aelknernot that i've been involved with17:19
aelkneri just noticed ccarey's checkin's of late17:19
ignaswell - chris is doing some tasks at the moment17:19
ignasas for others - i haven't gotten any code from them17:20
th1aThe main thing is that any work is better than no work & we should build on that.17:20
jelkneri understand17:20
th1aAndrew sent you code a few months ago, though, right ignas?17:20
th1aEarly fall.17:20
jelknerbut at this point, i'm trying to determine who has the skills needed to justify and invite to pycon17:20
jelknerour top goal for pycon will be to merge cando into schooltool17:21
ignas?17:21
ignascould you elaborate on that?17:21
th1aI'm comfortable with Andrew, but he hasn't done so much with CanDo.17:21
th1ajelkner: Yes, you need to discuss this with ignas.17:21
jelknerwe want cando to become a "schooltool buildout" I believe is the way Lumiere explained it to me.17:22
th1aI don't really think it is a plausible goal at this point.17:22
th1aFor a sprint in March.17:22
aelkneri'm really hoping for UI work at the sprint17:22
ignasoh17:23
ignashmm17:23
ignasbut making cando a custom school17:23
ignasis something that would only take a couple of days17:23
ignasmaybe less17:23
jelknerthat would be perfect for the sprint then17:23
ignasnot sure there is a need for sprinting17:24
ignasi mean - it's a single threaded task17:24
jelkneryes, but lets say we ask filip to work on it17:24
aelknerjelkner must resist the temptation to pile on things to be done17:24
ignasand i must fix libxml2 dependency first17:24
ignasso yeah - we could postpone it for the sprint17:24
jelknerit would  great if he could do that while sitting near to ignas, aelkner, pcardune17:25
jelknerok, i'm not wedded to anything in particular, but i want to begin developing a plan17:25
th1aThe first priority for PyCon has to be whatever needs to be finished for the Hardy release.17:26
jelknerinvolving *who* we are going to bring and *what* they will do17:26
aelknerwhat about getting the interns to help with the UI?17:26
aelknerthat worked well at the New Hampshire sprint17:26
jelknerthat would only work if schooltool pays them17:26
th1aAlso, we've learned that starting UI work at a sprint doesn't work if nobody is going to finish it.17:26
ignasjelkner: hmm, for the UI i'd say that the best thing to have is not just problems to solve, but some solutions in mind fleshed out before the sprint17:27
jelknerif cando pays them, they need to work on cando17:27
ignasth1a: but finishing UI work might be possible ;)17:27
*** jinty has quit IRC17:27
aelkneryeah, what ignas said :)17:27
*** jinty has joined #schooltool17:28
aelknerjelkner, schooltool UI could be considered part of cando17:28
th1aWell, aelkner, for next week's meeting you should work out your goals for the first bonus period.17:28
aelkneri thought we had those worked out17:28
aelknerat the meeting17:28
th1aYou should have a sense of how long CAS integration will take.17:28
aelknerat sla17:29
aelknerby next week, sure17:29
th1aWell, we left it a bit open since we had no idea if CAS & PHPCAS would work.17:29
aelknertrue17:29
th1aOr whether it would take two weeks or two months.17:29
ignasaelkner: don't forget the "single sign off"17:29
aelknerthat would be part of it, yes17:29
th1aBut if we add a UI switcheroo to your goals, something else will probably have to be moved around.17:30
aelknerif we do it at the sprint, i could be done already by the time we get back17:30
aelkneranyway, i figured the sprint would interrupt sla work17:31
aelknerno moatter what we do there, right?17:31
th1aWell, perhaps aelkner needs to write down a proposal for the scope of what he's envisioning.17:31
ignasaelkner: sprint might be a nice oportunity to do more sla work while having me nearby though17:31
th1aFor UI.17:31
aelknerignas: true, it could work out that way17:32
aelknerth1a: i don't have anything in mind for the UI in particular17:32
aelknerbut we proved at New Hap17:32
aelknerHampshire17:32
aelknerthat when we put our heads together17:32
aelknerwe were able to vastly improve cando's UI17:33
aelknerwhy not brainstorm at pycon17:33
aelknerin a similar fashion for schooltol's UI17:33
th1aOh, I know what needs to be done to SchoolTool's UI.17:33
aelknerget rid of the menus?17:34
ignasnot that i think that there are parts missing in our UI17:34
aelknerand make it tabbed like cando?17:34
ignasthat are more important than improving the ones that are already there17:34
th1aaelkner: Essentially.17:34
aelknerso could we start the sprint with whiteboard sessions17:35
aelknerdrawing up the new UI?17:35
th1aaelkner: We don't even need to do that.17:35
ignasaelkner: my suggestion would be to implement the new UI for the SLA17:35
ignaswith actual users17:35
ignasand actually working implementation17:35
ignasand then - if it's really good17:35
ignaswe'll push it to schooltool17:35
th1aThe only question is whether or not you're going to re-jigger every view in SchoolTool.17:36
aelknerwell, that was what i had in mind17:36
aelknera fundimental change to the paradigm17:36
aelknerit would be ideal for a group effort17:36
th1aI'm just saying, you're going to be spending a few weeks back at SLA finishing that.17:36
th1aNo matter what.17:36
th1aSo if you can fit it in your schedule, fine.17:37
aelknerok17:37
th1aUltimately, finishing it will be your responsibility.17:37
*** jinty_ has joined #schooltool17:37
aelknerthat's fine.  i did that with cando's new UI, so...17:38
ignaswell - if sla will not have any specific needs17:38
aelknerany specific needs that sla has could be included as overrides in their buildout17:39
ignasi am talking about time17:39
ignasparadigm shifts take a lot of programming17:39
th1aI don't think it is a programming paradigm shift.17:39
ignasUI ones take time too17:40
aelkneryes, it will take some time, but we will have many programmers there17:40
th1aWell, we'll need to know exactly what we're trying to do before we arrive.17:41
ignasindeed17:41
th1aWe can't start with a whiteboard session.17:41
th1aNor should we need to.17:41
th1aIt seems to me that the only difficult point, if we're going to do this, is whether or not there have to be role-specific views.17:41
th1aI'd VERY MUCH like to avoid that.17:42
th1aLike an entirely different view on an object for teachers vs. students.17:42
aelkneri don't see views of objects changing so much17:43
ignaswell - i just don't think redoing UI is something we need17:43
aelknerit's just the navigation to the objects that needs work17:43
ignasat the moment that is17:43
aelknerpeople hated using cando17:43
aelkneruntil we created the new skin17:43
aelknernow they love it17:43
th1aSee, this is why I'm stressing that aelkner will have to finish this himself.17:43
th1aBecause I know ignas doesn't want to.17:43
aelkneri already agreed to that17:44
aelkneri just thought it would be nice to put many heads together17:44
th1aI know... I'm just reinforcing the point ;-)17:44
aelknerbecuase UI is a subjective subject17:44
aelknerand the more opinions the better17:44
aelkneri could see what the sla folks would prefer as well17:45
*** jinty has quit IRC17:45
th1aWell, you'll need to start working that out with them ahead of the sprint for that anyhow.17:46
*** jinty has joined #schooltool17:47
th1aWell, we can continue this later.  Or now, but "informally."17:47
* th1a drops the bag of gravel.17:47
th1aLet's have another great week!17:47
jelknerth1a: can i talk to you now?17:47
th1aYes.17:48
jelknerth1a: can you call me at 703-228-5419?17:48
jelkneror would it be better for me to skype you?17:48
th1aI can call you.17:48
jelknercool17:48
* jelkner waits for the phone to ring...17:50
*** jinty_ has quit IRC17:55
*** jinty has quit IRC17:57
*** jinty has joined #schooltool17:57
*** jinty has quit IRC18:06
*** jinty has joined #schooltool18:07
*** mgallagh_ has joined #schooltool18:13
mgallagh_hey aelkner, what would you say is the best python debugger18:14
*** mgallagh_ is now known as mattva0118:15
*** jinty has quit IRC18:16
*** jinty has joined #schooltool18:17
aelknermattva01: what's up?18:20
mattva01what is the best way to do line by line debugging in python18:20
aelknerhave you ever used pdb?18:21
mattva01no18:21
aelknerso, you insert the following into your code where you want to debug:18:21
th1aIs there anything other than pdb?18:21
aelknerimport pdb; pdb.set_trace()18:21
mattva01yes thats what I need18:21
aelknerwhen execution reaches that point18:22
aelknerit will drop you into a pdb prompt18:22
mattva01I realized i had used it before ,just forgot about it18:22
mattva01yes18:22
aelknerok, so you';re set?18:22
mattva01yes, thank you18:22
aelknerno prob18:22
*** jinty_ has joined #schooltool18:26
*** jinty_ has quit IRC18:35
*** jinty_ has joined #schooltool18:36
*** jinty has quit IRC18:37
*** jinty_ has quit IRC18:45
*** jinty has joined #schooltool18:46
*** jinty has quit IRC18:54
*** jinty has joined #schooltool18:55
*** nitromaster has joined #schooltool18:55
*** jelkner has quit IRC18:56
*** mattva01 has quit IRC18:56
*** mgallagh_ has joined #schooltool18:56
*** fstpierre has joined #schooltool19:01
fstpierrewithin /var/www/moodle/auth/cas19:02
fstpierreis config.html19:02
*** jinty has quit IRC19:04
*** jinty has joined #schooltool19:04
*** jinty has quit IRC19:14
*** jinty has joined #schooltool19:17
*** jinty has quit IRC19:26
fstpierre# ruby libraries besides ActiveRecord.19:27
fstpierre#19:27
fstpierre# With MySQL, your config would be something like the following:19:27
fstpierre# (be sure to create the casserver database in MySQL beforehand,19:27
fstpierre#   i.e. `mysqladmin -u root create casserver`)19:27
fstpierredatabase: adapter: mysql database: maildb username: root password: host: localhost19:27
*** jinty has joined #schooltool19:29
*** ignas has quit IRC19:34
*** jinty has quit IRC19:46
*** mgallagh_ has quit IRC19:47
*** Aiste has quit IRC19:47
*** fstpierre has quit IRC19:50
*** jinty has joined #schooltool19:55
*** jinty has quit IRC20:13
*** jinty has joined #schooltool20:17
*** Aiste has joined #schooltool20:58
*** jinty_ has joined #schooltool21:37
*** jinty has quit IRC21:41
*** jinty_ has quit IRC21:54
*** Aiste has quit IRC21:54
*** mgedmin has quit IRC22:03
*** jfluhmann has joined #schooltool23:23
*** jfluhmann has left #schooltool23:23

Generated by irclog2html.py 2.15.1 by Marius Gedminas - find it at mg.pov.lt!