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| th1a | Hi aelkner, yvl, ignas, jelkner. | 16:31 |
|---|---|---|
| ignas | th1a, hi | 16:31 |
| aelkner | hello | 16:31 |
| jelkner | good morning! | 16:32 |
| th1a | Is yvl around? | 16:32 |
| yvl | morning :) | 16:32 |
| yvl | th1a - I got better, so I'm back on schooltool | 16:33 |
| yvl | Ignas caught something though | 16:33 |
| th1a | Excellent. | 16:33 |
| th1a | Agh. | 16:33 |
| th1a | OK, let's start with yvl, what are you doing now? | 16:34 |
| yvl | I'm in the middle of SLA reports feature | 16:34 |
| th1a | So you're working on those other report groupings. | 16:34 |
| yvl | yes | 16:34 |
| yvl | I'll have it done tomorrow | 16:34 |
| th1a | Cool. | 16:34 |
| yvl | it will be a "dropdown" schooltool action | 16:35 |
| th1a | You should decide if you want to and/or can come to the February sprint in Virginia. | 16:35 |
| th1a | And you guys should do what you need to do -- visas to the US are easier now, I think I read? | 16:36 |
| * th1a found an English blog about Lithuanian politics. | 16:36 | |
| ignas | oh yeah, I must get a new pasport | 16:36 |
| ignas | before february ;) | 16:36 |
| th1a | Do you guys need letters? | 16:36 |
| ignas | yes | 16:37 |
| yvl | true, I'll need to check what's my situation (I have visa valid untill 2012 or something, but passport will expire sometime soon) | 16:37 |
| yvl | th1a, when is the sprint taking place? | 16:37 |
| th1a | OK. I'll try to find/replace all the correct words in the letter. | 16:37 |
| th1a | Feb. 6-8. | 16:37 |
| jelkner | replaceafill will definitely need a letter | 16:37 |
| th1a | OK. | 16:38 |
| th1a | I can do all three at once. | 16:38 |
| yvl | I'll talk to Aiste, but I guess it's a matter of funding | 16:38 |
| th1a | We'll pay for the travel. | 16:38 |
| yvl | ok | 16:39 |
| th1a | You guys can work out if you want to do it otherwise. | 16:39 |
| th1a | It would be nice to have you. | 16:39 |
| th1a | It looks like Chris A. from SLA (the sys admin) is coming. | 16:39 |
| yvl | oh, great | 16:39 |
| aelkner | awesome | 16:39 |
| th1a | And the two outstanding problems are a) good person demographic schema b) organizing reports throughout SchoolTool. | 16:40 |
| th1a | Those are the big problems I see, at least. | 16:40 |
| th1a | I'm sure ignas sees others as well ;-) | 16:40 |
| ignas | th1a, and the german guy ;) | 16:41 |
| th1a | So we'll need to keep aelkner and yvl from stepping on each others toes this week. | 16:41 |
| yvl | :))) | 16:41 |
| th1a | Yes... I don't think we'll actually mess further with the spreadsheets ourselves for a while. | 16:41 |
| aelkner | i can stay out of schooltool.sla for the short term | 16:41 |
| th1a | But we will accept patches! | 16:41 |
| th1a | aelkner: That shouldn't be necessary. | 16:41 |
| aelkner | isn't that where yvl will be working? | 16:42 |
| yvl | yes | 16:42 |
| th1a | This is why we have a revision control system. | 16:42 |
| th1a | Just don't fix the same bugs twice! | 16:42 |
| th1a | So what's your plan for the week, aelkner? | 16:42 |
| yvl | I assigned 2 bugs for myself: reports and "show all narratives" https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/schooltool/+bug/304118 | 16:43 |
| aelkner | i need to continue diagnosing the sendmail problem | 16:43 |
| aelkner | i looked at the code this weekend in zope.sendmail | 16:43 |
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| aelkner | and i found the thread that gets created at startup | 16:43 |
| replaceafill | good morning all | 16:43 |
| th1a | hi replaceafill. | 16:43 |
| th1a | aelkner: If it works with our test sendmail, how do we know it is not a problem with their sendmail configuration? | 16:44 |
| th1a | Did you tell Chris A. what we found? | 16:44 |
| aelkner | not yet, but i can do that today | 16:44 |
| aelkner | i wanted to have more info on the code first | 16:44 |
| aelkner | and i had an idea for some trace debugging | 16:44 |
| th1a | I wouldn't get too deep into it. | 16:45 |
| th1a | Let's discuss it a little after the meeting. | 16:45 |
| aelkner | ok | 16:45 |
| yvl | aelkner, wanna do the https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/schooltool/+bug/304104 ? | 16:45 |
| yvl | (gradebook export) ? | 16:45 |
| yvl | when time permits | 16:45 |
| th1a | We can do a very simple implementation of it. | 16:46 |
| th1a | You just have to be clear about how little it is actually doing. | 16:46 |
| yvl | the one where they just need the export of "Student, StudentID, Teacher, Course, Section, Scores" | 16:47 |
| th1a | Perhaps I should actually re-read the bug. | 16:47 |
| budgester | hi all | 16:47 |
| aelkner | i don't see those details in the bug report | 16:47 |
| yvl | yes, those were sent by email | 16:47 |
| yvl | on... | 16:47 |
| th1a | hi budgester. | 16:47 |
| aelkner | it just says 'This will take discussion' | 16:48 |
| yvl | 2008.12.10 | 16:48 |
| yvl | Subject: Re: ShoolTool | 16:48 |
| yvl | from Chris | 16:48 |
| yvl | updated the bug | 16:49 |
| budgester | to bring people up to speed about my interest in school tool. I'm a network manager and school mis/dba for a secondary school in the UK | 16:49 |
| th1a | Thanks budgester. | 16:50 |
| budgester | so if I can help in any way, i'm willing | 16:50 |
| th1a | budgester: OK. For the moment we're in the middle of our weekly developer meeting, so just follow along a bit. | 16:51 |
| th1a | aelkner: That seems more straightforward than the larger question of gradebook export. | 16:51 |
| yvl | mhm | 16:51 |
| aelkner | what seems more straightforward? | 16:51 |
| replaceafill | ignas, is the excel import feature in the trunk? | 16:52 |
| yvl | maybe this export should be added directly to SLA and not generic gradebook? | 16:52 |
| th1a | Student, StudentID, Teacher, Course, Section, Scores | 16:52 |
| ignas | replaceafill, maybe, not sure at the moment | 16:52 |
| ignas | replaceafill, as you have mentioned that term dates are missing | 16:52 |
| th1a | Well, the real problem is having some pretense of doing export AND import. | 16:52 |
| ignas | term date fixes are missing in one of the eggs | 16:52 |
| th1a | ex/im of gradebook, I mean. | 16:53 |
| aelkner | sla is not currently using schoolyears version of schooltool | 16:53 |
| aelkner | or schooltool.gradebook | 16:53 |
| yvl | th1a, it seems to me that it would be much easier just do the basic export for SLA | 16:53 |
| th1a | That's what I'm saying. | 16:53 |
| yvl | and then a complete ex/im for schooltool.gradebook | 16:54 |
| aelkner | that sounds more practical for now | 16:54 |
| th1a | Yes. | 16:54 |
| th1a | This is exactly my point. | 16:54 |
| th1a | You guys have to get used to me bringing up what I DON'T want to do. | 16:54 |
| yvl | ok, just making sure I'm on the same page with you guys :) | 16:54 |
| th1a | It is a habit. | 16:54 |
| th1a | It is the way my brain works. | 16:54 |
| yvl | a good one, by the way :) | 16:54 |
| aelkner | process of elimination | 16:55 |
| th1a | Let's leave that bug on the table and address the school years question. | 16:55 |
| th1a | I guess we need to get SLA up so speed version-wise? | 16:56 |
| yvl | aelkner, to avoid accidentally doing the same work twice, please assign bugs to yourself before starting | 16:56 |
| yvl | I'll do the same | 16:56 |
| th1a | Indeed. | 16:56 |
| aelkner | ok | 16:56 |
| th1a | So does aelkner just need to do the same thing for SLA's code he did for CanDo? | 16:57 |
| aelkner | that's one job that needs doing | 16:57 |
| aelkner | are we talking about switching sla to schoolyears soon? | 16:57 |
| th1a | Again, Christmas is the second best time to do this kind of thing (after summer). | 16:58 |
| aelkner | that could the time to do it, yes | 16:58 |
| th1a | In the larger picture, I'm going to start talking to Chris about a larger Philly pilot for the fall. | 16:59 |
| th1a | But we should rip off this scab in all our code now. | 16:59 |
| th1a | I don't want to be thinking about this in May. | 17:00 |
| th1a | So do you want to do that first, aelkner? | 17:00 |
| aelkner | i would definitely like to have schoolyears behind us after Christmas | 17:00 |
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| th1a | OK. get started on that. | 17:01 |
| th1a | We've got lots of guests this week ;-) | 17:01 |
| aelkner | ok | 17:01 |
| th1a | ignas, you're up. | 17:01 |
| ignas | th1a, yep | 17:02 |
| ignas | not much done this week | 17:02 |
| ignas | due to the release nasyness | 17:02 |
| ignas | nastyness | 17:03 |
| ignas | and the general lack of concentration | 17:03 |
| ignas | it seems that not having a release comming soon totally broke my sense of focus | 17:03 |
| ignas | and again I don't know what is important and what is not important | 17:03 |
| ignas | we should probably try and come up with some list of priorities | 17:04 |
| ignas | and decide what we want in our 2009.04 release | 17:04 |
| th1a | A list of priorities? | 17:04 |
| ignas | to get it on track | 17:04 |
| th1a | Yes. | 17:04 |
| ignas | i mean - i am working on import/export | 17:04 |
| th1a | I thought we were getting to that point. | 17:04 |
| ignas | but I don't really know what else are we going to do for the release | 17:04 |
| ignas | and what *must* be in the release | 17:05 |
| th1a | The two big things in my mind I mentioned above. | 17:05 |
| th1a | Good default person demographic schema. | 17:05 |
| th1a | Including a few school-definable text fields. | 17:05 |
| yvl | and a good way to extend it maybe? | 17:06 |
| th1a | I would say a good way to extend it in code. | 17:06 |
| yvl | where good means fast and easy | 17:06 |
| th1a | Don't think we can do fast/easy/reliable. | 17:06 |
| ignas | yeah, I guess we can work on it | 17:07 |
| ignas | though it seems that priority is on the user side extendability | 17:07 |
| ignas | oh, one more thing - i'll want to talk about date entry formats in schooltool after the meeting | 17:08 |
| ignas | a bit | 17:08 |
| th1a | What I'd like for 1.0 isn't so much extensively user-customizable, but I'd like a developer to be able to make, say, a UK demographic schema without permanently forking everything. | 17:08 |
| ignas | because it seems that this issue is becoming annoying | 17:08 |
| th1a | Well, it is extra annoying because our current demographic data is so obviously incomplete. | 17:09 |
| th1a | It is an 80/20 problem. | 17:09 |
| th1a | 80% of the data is going to be common. | 17:09 |
| ignas | i am talking about "ISO" vs "localised" | 17:09 |
| th1a | Oh... yes. | 17:09 |
| th1a | Well, yes, if that needs fixing, fix it. | 17:10 |
| ignas | how? | 17:10 |
| ignas | i mean - choices are | 17:10 |
| yvl | I needed help from Ignas to set up schooltool on a clean database - just because of the different date formats everywhere | 17:10 |
| ignas | I work hard and make localized date picker | 17:10 |
| ignas | yvl, that one is fixed | 17:10 |
| ignas | I can make all date entry in schooltool and all short date formatting ISO | 17:11 |
| yvl | sorry, missed the fix | 17:11 |
| ignas | so that users would be able to copy and paste dates | 17:11 |
| ignas | or we can make all the dates locale sensitive (both entry and short format) | 17:11 |
| ignas | but live without date pickers | 17:11 |
| ignas | and I need someone to help me pick the solution | 17:12 |
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| th1a | OK... | 17:12 |
| aelkner | i have a question | 17:12 |
| aelkner | in sla's goal entry | 17:13 |
| aelkner | i used a date widget | 17:13 |
| aelkner | why can't we use the same? | 17:13 |
| aelkner | the widget brings up a calendar | 17:13 |
| aelkner | so there's no issue of format for entering the dates | 17:13 |
| aelkner | you just click on the calendar | 17:14 |
| aelkner | the people at sla love that widget | 17:14 |
| ignas | aelkner, so ISO dates and ISO date formatting | 17:15 |
| yvl | that would be " I can make all date entry in schooltool and all short date formatting ISO" option | 17:15 |
| ignas | aelkner, mostly the issue is that we print one kind of date in UI when schooltool prints for example errors | 17:15 |
| ignas | aelkner, and use a different format for entry | 17:15 |
| aelkner | my point is, don't use any format for entry | 17:15 |
| aelkner | use the widget | 17:15 |
| ignas | and use format for output | 17:16 |
| aelkner | yes | 17:16 |
| Aiste | th1a: sprint sounds good :) | 17:16 |
| ignas | I can do that, but to me it seems nasty, because some users use their keyboard | 17:16 |
| th1a | Aiste: Good. | 17:16 |
| ignas | especially when entering dates a year or so into the future | 17:16 |
| aelkner | well, there's often a conflict between user preferences for data entry | 17:17 |
| th1a | One thing that a lot of sites do which seems kind of nasty but is probably effective is just use a series of pop-ups for the date. | 17:17 |
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| th1a | Although I guess we're saying the sequence of those would have to change based on locale. | 17:17 |
| aelkner | so are we saying that the way sla goal entry works is wrong? | 17:18 |
| th1a | ignas thinks it is suboptimal. | 17:18 |
| * th1a thinks it might be the best solution. | 17:18 | |
| ignas | ok | 17:18 |
| ignas | so format the locale specific | 17:18 |
| ignas | and accept only ISO | 17:18 |
| ignas | and show date entry widgets | 17:19 |
| ignas | my point is - I don't like to show users "Date 05/15/08 that you have entered is outside of the range of the schoool year" and have "2008-05-15" entered under the message | 17:19 |
| ignas | the other thing - what do we do with our new enthusiastic german user? | 17:20 |
| th1a | Why would you see the ISO in that case? | 17:20 |
| ignas | th1a, well because inputs with date widget | 17:21 |
| th1a | I'm getting him going on some screencasts, I think. | 17:21 |
| ignas | only accept ISO dates | 17:21 |
| th1a | Right, but won't the user see a little calendar instead of a string? | 17:21 |
| aelkner | they see both | 17:21 |
| aelkner | the string is entered into the text field | 17:21 |
| aelkner | and there's a ... button right next to the test field | 17:22 |
| th1a | Is that the way it works for SLA? | 17:22 |
| aelkner | that calls up the calendar | 17:22 |
| aelkner | yes | 17:22 |
| aelkner | it's a very nice widget | 17:22 |
| aelkner | becuase it allows text entry as ignas suggested | 17:22 |
| th1a | So the reason this is hard for us is that most people don't worry about being this localizable? | 17:22 |
| ignas | th1a, making it localized is very very hard | 17:23 |
| ignas | th1a, srichter would be glad to have it localized and ported to his z3c form library | 17:23 |
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| replaceafill | aelkner, got my mail? | 17:25 |
| th1a | What if you did just use pop-ups for Day/Month/Year. | 17:25 |
| th1a | ? | 17:25 |
| ignas | th1a, not sure I understand | 17:25 |
| aelkner | replaceafill: the meeting is not over yet | 17:25 |
| replaceafill | aelkner, sorry man | 17:26 |
| th1a | You have three pop-ups: Day: (brings up 1-31) Month: (brings up months) Year: (brings up a bunch of years). | 17:27 |
| aelkner | th1a: what about the calendar widget? | 17:27 |
| aelkner | what you're talking about sond so combersome for teh user | 17:27 |
| ignas | th1a, you mean 3x dropdowns | 17:27 |
| th1a | Yes. | 17:27 |
| ignas | th1a, that is even more inconvenient than the picker that shows the wrong format | 17:28 |
| yvl | then simple YYYY-MM-DD text format would be more convenient... | 17:28 |
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| th1a | You know, I've thought that, yet I see many sites that do it, and it isn't that bad. | 17:28 |
| ignas | yvl, point mostly is, that it's not "simple" in ome countries | 17:28 |
| ignas | *some | 17:29 |
| yvl | i mean just doing the ISO format for input | 17:29 |
| th1a | Yes, the text format is the opposite of how it is done in the US. | 17:29 |
| ignas | my point is - if we accept ISO, we should probably output ISO | 17:29 |
| ignas | but it seems that SLA do not have any problems | 17:30 |
| ignas | with having one kind of dates entered, and different printed | 17:30 |
| aelkner | they use the calendar | 17:30 |
| aelkner | and they love it | 17:30 |
| th1a | But if they did decide to type, they'd probably get it wrong. | 17:30 |
| yvl | ignas, ISO for input, locale-aware output seems to me a cheap / impressive (the widget!) way to do it | 17:30 |
| aelkner | but they don't decide to type | 17:30 |
| aelkner | but, yes, if they did... | 17:31 |
| th1a | Perhaps just hiding the text field would be better. | 17:31 |
| ignas | yvl, it is cheap, the biggest kludge is the error messages, but I can defitinetly do it | 17:31 |
| th1a | That's the thing about three pop-ups. | 17:31 |
| th1a | You don't need an accompanying text field at all. | 17:31 |
| ignas | th1a, i know i'd hate 3 dropdowns, and I use the forms rarely | 17:31 |
| ignas | th1a, now imagine someone entering birth dates for 200 students | 17:32 |
| aelkner | i know sla would | 17:32 |
| aelkner | hate it, that is | 17:32 |
| aelkner | usually a goal due date is soon | 17:32 |
| aelkner | so the calendar is really handy | 17:32 |
| aelkner | you just click on the ... | 17:32 |
| th1a | Yes, the calendar widget is much more of a pain if you're entering 300 birthdays. | 17:33 |
| aelkner | and the date you're looking for is probably already visible | 17:33 |
| ignas | I guess i'll have to try and estimate how long it would take to make localized date widget, how long it would take to port ISO widget to z3c.form | 17:33 |
| aelkner | in our case, we're only entering a limited number of datesd | 17:33 |
| aelkner | so using the calendar is easy and efficiient | 17:33 |
| th1a | Yes, I need some time estimates at this point. | 17:34 |
| th1a | One thing to take into account is that the person who might want to enter dates manually is probably doing a lot, so they could be trained in version 1.0 to do it the backwards way if necessary. | 17:34 |
| th1a | We couldn't kludge this in javascript could we? | 17:35 |
| aelkner | where would a user be entering a lot of dates? | 17:35 |
| ignas | yeah, I guess | 17:35 |
| th1a | Like, I'm typing in 300 students. | 17:35 |
| ignas | aelkner, dwelsh told me that all the initial cando users more than 100 were enterd by hand | 17:36 |
| ignas | as in - using the "add person" form | 17:36 |
| th1a | And each of their birthdays is 12 years ago. | 17:36 |
| th1a | And I'm, you know, a fast typist. | 17:36 |
| jelkner | can i interrupt a minute? | 17:36 |
| jelkner | i should have asked this before hand | 17:36 |
| jelkner | but i have class in 25 minutes | 17:36 |
| th1a | yes jelkner. | 17:36 |
| jelkner | so i was wondering if we could discuss any sprint issues now | 17:36 |
| jelkner | before i have to leave | 17:36 |
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| jelkner | regarding philly | 17:37 |
| th1a | go ahead | 17:37 |
| jelkner | i have confirmed that both fsutifchi and ccary are coming | 17:37 |
| jelkner | i've registered | 17:37 |
| jelkner | and i need to follow up with dwelsh and jstraw since today is the deadline for early registration | 17:37 |
| jelkner | is there anything else that needs to be done? | 17:37 |
| jelkner | regarding the feb sprint | 17:38 |
| th1a | I think we're ok for SLA. | 17:38 |
| th1a | I'll touch base with Chris. | 17:38 |
| jelkner | replaceafill will need two things: | 17:38 |
| jelkner | (actually 3) | 17:38 |
| jelkner | 1. a letter | 17:38 |
| jelkner | 2. $160 for the visa fee | 17:38 |
| jelkner | 3. a plane ticket | 17:38 |
| jelkner | we really don't have a lot of time | 17:38 |
| jelkner | since this process can take awhile | 17:39 |
| jelkner | (oops, i gotta go) | 17:39 |
| jelkner | incoming student tour | 17:39 |
| th1a | ... | 17:39 |
| th1a | OK. | 17:39 |
| aelkner | getting back to dates | 17:40 |
| aelkner | with the calendar widget | 17:40 |
| aelkner | you can enter dates as a typist, 1990-10-01, for a student's bday | 17:40 |
| aelkner | or you could use the calendar if you prefer | 17:40 |
| aelkner | why would that be a problem? | 17:41 |
| ignas | aelkner, my point is - if we do ISO, maybe we should do ISO in the output too | 17:41 |
| ignas | as in - around the system, not show 05/05/05 dates | 17:41 |
| aelkner | fine, let's do that then | 17:41 |
| th1a | It is clearly suboptimal to ask people to enter dates backward. | 17:41 |
| aelkner | i think people can understand 1990-10-01 | 17:41 |
| aelkner | to mean what it means | 17:41 |
| jelkner | i'm back | 17:42 |
| th1a | Which one is the month? | 17:42 |
| aelkner | ok, good point | 17:42 |
| th1a | jelkner: if nobody other than me needs to know this stuff we can talk about it later. | 17:42 |
| jelkner | ok | 17:42 |
| ignas | i mean - the perfect way is z3c.datewidget that can do locale specific date picking | 17:42 |
| ignas | as it is very "expensive" i want to know what is our second best option | 17:43 |
| aelkner | but that requires changing the forms to use z3c, right? | 17:43 |
| th1a | I just wouldn't want to spend much more than a week on it. | 17:43 |
| ignas | whether it is "ISO dates everywhere" or "ISO dates for entry + localised output" | 17:43 |
| th1a | Doing it in javascript seems plausible to me. | 17:43 |
| ignas | th1a, well - the picker is java script, but javascript can't do localisation | 17:44 |
| th1a | Javascript doesn't know the user preference? | 17:44 |
| ignas | aelkner, yes, other kinds of forms do not support losalised dates at all | 17:44 |
| ignas | th1a, even if it knows, do you want to write java script parsers and formatters for all the dates? | 17:44 |
| ignas | th1a, it's a python library that does all the maqgix | 17:44 |
| ignas | th1a, deep in Zope3 and knows how to parse and print all the date formats possible | 17:45 |
| ignas | th1a, if user enter 05/03/11 - java script must convert it into a date to show it in the picker | 17:45 |
| th1a | Yes, but something simple could do most of the work. | 17:45 |
| th1a | I mean, you could peek at the date and say "please format this YYYY-MM-DD or use the calendar picker" in a relatively painless way. | 17:46 |
| th1a | Before the form was submitted. | 17:46 |
| ignas | ahh | 17:46 |
| ignas | you mean adding a java script validator for the input field? | 17:47 |
| th1a | Yes. | 17:47 |
| ignas | hmm | 17:47 |
| th1a | I mean, it is a question of priorities. | 17:47 |
| th1a | I would rather spend two weeks on reports than date pickers. | 17:47 |
| ignas | yeah | 17:47 |
| ignas | what I want to know - what is our strategy for date entry/ display | 17:48 |
| aelkner | we could add the calendar widget at least | 17:48 |
| aelkner | that would not solve the text entry problem | 17:48 |
| ignas | ISO/local, ISO/ISO, or local/local | 17:48 |
| aelkner | but it would make the user experience of picking term dates nicer | 17:48 |
| ignas | because we want it consistent, which it is not | 17:48 |
| th1a | I think that for now we could take a 90% of the time use a calendar and the other 10% of the time use Javascript validation might be best for now. | 17:48 |
| th1a | So ISO in for now. | 17:49 |
| ignas | ISO/ISO or ISO/local | 17:49 |
| aelkner | and calendar widget? | 17:49 |
| ignas | i mean our short date formatters should use which one | 17:49 |
| th1a | ISO/Local with widget and validation. | 17:49 |
| th1a | short-date formatters = no calendar? | 17:49 |
| ignas | aelkner, making widget work on z3c forms still requires work, what I wanted to know is - which system do we follow, I can make it more and more convenient gradually | 17:50 |
| ignas | th1a, separate issues, short-date formatters are the code that prints short dates around the system | 17:50 |
| ignas | th1a, like in the calendar | 17:50 |
| aelkner | a simple change to use the calendat widget would require no z3c | 17:50 |
| ignas | th1a, or in display forms | 17:50 |
| ignas | or error messages | 17:50 |
| ignas | aelkner, problem is - we use z3c | 17:51 |
| aelkner | where? | 17:51 |
| ignas | aelkner, person add/edit form, term add/edit form | 17:51 |
| ignas | and a couple more places | 17:51 |
| aelkner | we do? | 17:51 |
| aelkner | oh | 17:51 |
| ignas | yes! | 17:51 |
| aelkner | never mind :) | 17:52 |
| ignas | ok, going for ISO entry / local printing | 17:52 |
| th1a | That seems most doable. | 17:52 |
| ignas | th1a, changing printing is easy | 17:52 |
| ignas | just wanted to know which one is better | 17:52 |
| th1a | OK. I don't think I have anything else to contribut about dates this morning. | 17:55 |
| th1a | budgester: Fun, eh? | 17:55 |
| th1a | Ah... anything else? | 17:56 |
| budgester | had to do some other work, but reading it seems there is a lot going on | 17:56 |
| *** jelkner has quit IRC | 17:57 | |
| th1a | A lot going on with DATES. | 17:57 |
| th1a | ignas: We'll probably need to discuss priorities later this week. | 17:58 |
| ignas | th1a, yeah, when I'll get better | 17:58 |
| th1a | OK, have a great week guys! Get better ignas. | 17:58 |
| ignas | thanks, bye | 17:58 |
| * th1a drops the bag of gravel. | 17:58 | |
| th1a | aelkner: sendmail. | 17:58 |
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| budgester | Not much I can contribute to at the moment | 17:59 |
| th1a | Well, not to fixing date formatting, I imagine. ;-) | 17:59 |
| budgester | especially not with zope | 17:59 |
| yvl | a productive day to you all... :) | 17:59 |
| th1a | Do you have any Python experience? | 17:59 |
| budgester | yup, | 18:00 |
| th1a | Ever looked at ReportLab? | 18:00 |
| budgester | no i'm afraid not | 18:00 |
| budgester | I'm currently working on moodle integration with my MIS at the moment | 18:01 |
| th1a | AH. | 18:01 |
| th1a | budgester: Did we discuss CAS via email? | 18:02 |
| th1a | It is hard to keep everyone straight with their IRC handle. | 18:02 |
| budgester | th1a: no i don't think so | 18:02 |
| th1a | OK. | 18:02 |
| budgester | I'm the same as my launchpad account | 18:02 |
| th1a | Yeah, we're doing some Moodle integration, starting with using CAS for single-sign-on. | 18:03 |
| budgester | Reportlab looks fairly good, but we need some data to work with | 18:03 |
| th1a | We're hoping to turn that on at a test school over Christmas break. | 18:03 |
| th1a | Yes, have you tried importing the test data spreadsheet? | 18:03 |
| th1a | http://book.schooltool.org/htmlhelp/sample.html | 18:04 |
| th1a | aelkner: Do we know if on SLA's server that SchoolTool is actually sending the email to sendmail when it is suppose do (as opposed to when it is restarted)? | 18:05 |
| aelkner | i was trying to explain to you before, so here goes | 18:06 |
| aelkner | at startup, a thread is created for queued mail delivery | 18:07 |
| aelkner | that thread runs in a loop, looking at the contents of the queue directory | 18:07 |
| aelkner | and sending the emails found there | 18:07 |
| aelkner | then it sleeps for three seconds, and tries again | 18:07 |
| aelkner | the only thing to stop this loop would be if for some reason, the stop() method gets called on the thread | 18:08 |
| aelkner | which should only happen at shutdown | 18:08 |
| aelkner | so perhaps that gets called earlier | 18:09 |
| aelkner | i would need to put some log messages in that code to trace debug it | 18:09 |
| aelkner | that's what i planned as my next step this evening | 18:09 |
| aelkner | when it would be ok to bring down the server | 18:09 |
| aelkner | i could put log messages in the zope.sendmail code and see what happens | 18:10 |
| th1a | But another question is whether we can just see if sendmail is getting the messages the first time. | 18:10 |
| th1a | If Chris A. actually knows anything about sendmail, he can probably tell us that. | 18:10 |
| aelkner | before i ask him that | 18:11 |
| aelkner | what are you suggesting is happening here? | 18:11 |
| *** yvl has quit IRC | 18:11 | |
| aelkner | that we are sending a mail to sendmail and yet it doesn't get purged from the queue? | 18:11 |
| th1a | Well, supposedly we have two identical SchoolTool instances, sending messages to sendmail. | 18:12 |
| aelkner | nope | 18:12 |
| th1a | On one sendmail it works, on another it doesn't. | 18:12 |
| aelkner | one doesn't even send anyting | 18:12 |
| aelkner | except at startup | 18:12 |
| aelkner | the other doesn't seem to have that problem | 18:12 |
| th1a | So we have two different SchoolTools. | 18:12 |
| th1a | Why? | 18:12 |
| aelkner | no | 18:12 |
| aelkner | we have a problem with that thread i mentioned | 18:13 |
| aelkner | why is it shutting down? | 18:13 |
| aelkner | that would not have to do with delivering mail to sendmail | 18:13 |
| aelkner | that part works fine | 18:13 |
| th1a | That thread stops on the production server but not the test server? | 18:13 |
| aelkner | i need to put the traces in to be more sure about the thread stopping and wny | 18:14 |
| aelkner | why don't i look into that and report back | 18:14 |
| th1a | Well, it is a guess. | 18:14 |
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| aelkner | nothing is a guess with traces | 18:14 |
| aelkner | it's a smoking gun | 18:15 |
| jstraw | hi all... sorry I'm so late, had a dedication to tape this morning | 18:15 |
| th1a | You need DEDICATION TO SCHOOLTOOL. | 18:15 |
| jstraw | ****** | 18:15 |
| jstraw | ****************** ******************* * ************************ | 18:15 |
| jstraw | <_< | 18:15 |
| jstraw | *not having a good morning* | 18:16 |
| th1a | jstraw: You can read the log for an exciting discussion of ISO date formats. | 18:16 |
| th1a | You missed a good one. | 18:16 |
| jstraw | damn it | 18:16 |
| jstraw | I wanted to be in that conversation | 18:16 |
| th1a | That's truly dedication. | 18:16 |
| jstraw | th1a: I did not have a choice | 18:17 |
| jstraw | I just got to sit down in my office | 18:17 |
| th1a | No, I mean, if you even wanted to discuss ISO date formats, you're truly dedicated. | 18:17 |
| th1a | aelkner: What I'm saying is that there are two parts of this system. In theory, we have identical copies of one part of the system (SchoolTool) and known different configurations and version of the other (sendmail). | 18:18 |
| th1a | If the system works on one but not the other, the logical step is to focus on the known different parts. | 18:18 |
| aelkner | yes | 18:18 |
| th1a | i.e., sendmail. | 18:19 |
| aelkner | that's one way of looking at it | 18:20 |
| aelkner | but then again, that could be chasing a red herring | 18:20 |
| aelkner | i mean, different admins would wnat to use different mail servers | 18:20 |
| th1a | Well, I'm saying that I'd rather Chris chased that herring first. | 18:20 |
| aelkner | if he's available | 18:21 |
| th1a | OK aelkner, trace away. | 18:22 |
| aelkner | i win | 18:22 |
| aelkner | i can't believe it :) | 18:22 |
| aelkner | replaceafill: i got your email | 18:23 |
| replaceafill | aelkner, thanks | 18:23 |
| replaceafill | sorry for interrupting before | 18:23 |
| th1a | I'm not saying you're right. | 18:23 |
| aelkner | that's ok, you didn't know | 18:23 |
| th1a | I've just given up. | 18:23 |
| aelkner | th1a: but i won, and that's what's important :) | 18:23 |
| th1a | Well, what's important is getting this working. | 18:23 |
| aelkner | yes, making the opponent give up is one tried and true method of winning | 18:24 |
| jstraw | aelkner: every mail server provides a sendmail backward compat mode | 18:24 |
| jstraw | aelkner: because most stuff is written to work in sendmail | 18:24 |
| aelkner | zope.sndmail is written to work with any smtp server | 18:25 |
| jstraw | yes | 18:25 |
| aelkner | wnyh shouldn't it? | 18:25 |
| th1a | Quirks. | 18:25 |
| jstraw | yea | 18:25 |
| jstraw | s*** happens | 18:25 |
| th1a | Perhaps aelkner underestimates the likelihood of sendmail acting irrationally. | 18:25 |
| aelkner | i don't | 18:26 |
| aelkner | look | 18:26 |
| jstraw | sendmail acting irrationally is the norm | 18:26 |
| aelkner | zope.sendmail logs stuff like 'Mail sent to ...' | 18:26 |
| aelkner | so if i can just get those logs working | 18:26 |
| th1a | And the guy who set it up was escorted out of the building by security a few months ago... | 18:26 |
| aelkner | i could see how it | 18:26 |
| aelkner | works already even before adding my own traces | 18:26 |
| aelkner | th1a: i get your point | 18:27 |
| aelkner | i will check with Chris A. to make sure he looks into whether sendmail is set up correctly | 18:27 |
| aelkner | i could get him on that | 18:27 |
| jstraw | long term, replacing sendmail with postfix | 18:27 |
| jstraw | will make you happier | 18:28 |
| aelkner | while i look into the log problem | 18:28 |
| th1a | What he needs to tell us is if the initial email is getting to sendmail at all. | 18:29 |
| aelkner | i'll ask him | 18:29 |
| aelkner | so perhaps you won after all | 18:29 |
| th1a | Everyone's a winner, aelkner. | 18:31 |
| th1a | Even jstraw. | 18:31 |
| th1a | We're all winners. | 18:31 |
| aelkner | no, i'm too competitive for that | 18:31 |
| th1a | Your trophies are in the mail. | 18:31 |
| aelkner | with me, it's a zero-sum game | 18:31 |
| aelkner | like with my Thursday night board game club | 18:32 |
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| budgester | back, having fun with linking door access to our our MIS here | 18:36 |
| budgester | that should be fun when it gets to Schooltool | 18:36 |
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| budgester | Is there a road map for school tool developement ? | 18:41 |
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| jstraw | budgester: ignas keeps a list of release goals | 18:42 |
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| budgester | Are these the same as the blueprints on launchpad | 18:43 |
| jstraw | right now the big upcomings are import and export of data and demographics | 18:44 |
| jstraw | *looks* | 18:44 |
| jstraw | those all seem valid, but they're not a complete list it seems | 18:45 |
| jstraw | th1a: I have something for your documentation | 18:45 |
| jstraw | th1a: we really need documentation on setting up schoolyear, term, timetable | 18:46 |
| jstraw | including more complex stuff like sections that cover multiple terms | 18:46 |
| th1a | Yes, I need to get rolling. | 18:49 |
| th1a | Waiting for new data import gave me an excuse to wait. | 18:50 |
| th1a | I'm out of excuses. | 18:50 |
| budgester | regarding the demographic stuff, any idea how it is likely to be implemented | 18:50 |
| th1a | Primarily we need to come up with a good default schema. | 18:50 |
| budgester | and is that going to be hardcoded ? | 18:51 |
| budgester | or setup from an external file | 18:51 |
| budgester | or exendable in the web interface | 18:52 |
| th1a | It will be hardcoded with a little web extendability. | 18:53 |
| budgester | is that cast in stone ? | 18:54 |
| th1a | And we should at least have a strategy for coding and using different schemas. | 18:54 |
| th1a | There is nowhere near enough time to do something customizable and reliable. | 18:54 |
| th1a | In my opinion. | 18:54 |
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| budgester | being a zope/zdb noob, how are attirbutes for db objects configured ? | 18:55 |
| th1a | They are persistent Python objects, and that's pretty much it. | 18:55 |
| th1a | I mean, everything in ZODB is a persistent Python object. | 18:56 |
| budgester | And how much work has been done on the demographics stuff so far | 18:56 |
| th1a | Well, we've had a few cracks at it. What we've got now is very simple. | 18:57 |
| th1a | We also had a "way too complex" version. | 18:57 |
| budgester | Heres how I was hoping somthing would work | 18:57 |
| budgester | a config fie, csv/xml/whatever with fields,datatypes that is read into schooltool that configures the objects, then a relevant file could be configured and sent out as updates were required | 18:58 |
| budgester | or for different countries, districts | 18:59 |
| th1a | I would like something like that too. | 19:00 |
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| budgester | As an example the UK government requires me do do a census each year, and for each census they seem to add an additional field of information that they require | 19:00 |
| th1a | There is just a difference between doing that so that it works if the user does the right thing all the time (not hard) and | 19:00 |
| th1a | doing it so that it still works if the user does the wrong thing (hard). | 19:00 |
| th1a | By hard, I mean "will take more time than we have." | 19:01 |
| budgester | When you say user, do you mean school secretary or MIS administrator | 19:01 |
| th1a | Both. | 19:01 |
| th1a | All involved parties. | 19:01 |
| budgester | And how much time do you have | 19:02 |
| budgester | i.e what are the constraints | 19:02 |
| th1a | There is actually some disincentive to make it easy, since it is less likely that the MIS administrator will try to do something crazy. | 19:02 |
| th1a | Well, 1.0 is due in April, and we have essentially 1.5 developers. | 19:03 |
| budgester | and it's a requirement for 1.0 ? | 19:03 |
| th1a | I'm saying it is NOT a requirement for 1.0, that's the point. | 19:03 |
| th1a | I'm saying we have time for a mostly hardcoded demographic system, not a cool very customizable one. | 19:04 |
| budgester | This is something I am willing to work on, and even learn zope for, as I think a customizable demographics system will give school tool a really big win | 19:05 |
| th1a | Yes, I'm certainly not arguing against it on principle. | 19:06 |
| th1a | aelkner: Can you point budgester to your custom demographics stuff for SLA? | 19:06 |
| budgester | Is there plans for somesort of RPC/SOAP interface as well | 19:06 |
| th1a | lol | 19:07 |
| th1a | Well, let me tell you a little story... | 19:07 |
| budgester | I'm a listening | 19:07 |
| th1a | Actually SchoolTool was initially designed to have a client interface that used REST web services to talk to the server. | 19:07 |
| budgester | I remember that | 19:07 |
| th1a | OK. Well, then, basically the answer to your question is no. | 19:08 |
| budgester | back in the day when I ran schoolbell here | 19:08 |
| th1a | Back in the day! | 19:08 |
| budgester | So how do I get my hard won data out of schooltool programmatically | 19:09 |
| th1a | Anyhow, do you have something specific in mind? | 19:09 |
| th1a | I mean, in terms of RPC or SOAP methods? | 19:09 |
| th1a | One reason we can't write a fancy demographic system right now is that we need to give you more ways to get your data out. | 19:10 |
| budgester | ok | 19:11 |
| th1a | Especially since more customizability complexifies getting data in/out. | 19:11 |
| budgester | How close are you guys to day to day running of schools ? | 19:11 |
| th1a | In what sense? | 19:12 |
| budgester | Let me give you an example of some of the challenges I'm facing at the moment | 19:12 |
| budgester | We have a School MIS, this holds the most upto date information I have about my students and staff | 19:13 |
| th1a | I worked as a teacher and school technology coordinator, if that's what you mean. | 19:13 |
| budgester | when they start, when they leave, what subjects they do etc..... | 19:13 |
| budgester | I also have the following systems, Library software, Cashless catering, Door access, Moodle and a few others | 19:14 |
| budgester | Most of these I am trying to tie together with a mash of SQL | 19:15 |
| budgester | Now with the ZODB that throws a whole heap of integration out the window | 19:15 |
| budgester | I was really hoping that yuor ZIS that you wrote was going to be the answer | 19:16 |
| th1a | Yeah... | 19:16 |
| th1a | ...that scene is just too broken. | 19:16 |
| budgester | but it would seem SIF and ZIS is currently struggling | 19:16 |
| th1a | It remains just strong enough to crowd out any competitor, yet too weak to solve the problem. | 19:17 |
| budgester | True | 19:17 |
| budgester | So we need something e.g. XML-RPC/SOAP so that we can transfer this information around | 19:18 |
| budgester | and keep it all up to date | 19:18 |
| budgester | And then if SIF/ZIS is resurrected a module could be written as required | 19:19 |
| th1a | Basically, these aren't problems we're focused on in the short term. | 19:19 |
| jstraw | schooltool has a half written very old sifagent module | 19:19 |
| jstraw | but that whole model is so overengineered it isn't funny | 19:20 |
| th1a | It is over-somethinged. | 19:20 |
| budgester | I also think with XML-RPC/SOAP you will get rid of the requirement to learn ZOPE | 19:20 |
| th1a | What we need first is a basic, working SIS. | 19:21 |
| budgester | And what constitutes as working SIS ? | 19:22 |
| th1a | I can add students and a reasonable set of contact/demographic data about them, track classroom attendance, enter grades, print out reports. | 19:23 |
| budgester | So why all the work on the calender stuff, when I can't even create timetables in it | 19:23 |
| th1a | Well, that's all water under the bridge at this point. That course was set in motion very early. | 19:24 |
| budgester | Sorry if I come across a bit blunt, I 've been watching schooltool for quite a few years and my level frustration has now overcome my non desire to program in zope | 19:24 |
| th1a | Obviously, SchoolTool has not taken the shortest distance between two points. | 19:25 |
| th1a | And in particular it is difficult to learn to constrain this kind of open-ended philanthropically funded project. | 19:25 |
| th1a | So we're trying to stay focused now. | 19:26 |
| budgester | fair one, I would love to be able to throw out my MIS that I am currently using and pay the 12000GBP that I am currently paying to a open source venture and I am sure so would a lot of other schools | 19:27 |
| th1a | That's why I'm still doing this. ;-) | 19:27 |
| th1a | And why Mark is still paying for it. | 19:27 |
| th1a | There are a lot of you out there. | 19:27 |
| budgester | So do you want me to keep bitching and moaning about things we need, to help keep things on track | 19:28 |
| th1a | lol | 19:28 |
| th1a | Well, the only problem is that the track is more narrow then you'd like right now. | 19:28 |
| th1a | I mean, it is pretty much part of the strategy to get something out with a more constrained demographic system than people would like. | 19:29 |
| budgester | And you have users for this ? | 19:29 |
| th1a | Because it is much better to have something real that people kick at and say "almost but let's add this" rather than "give us six more months." | 19:30 |
| th1a | I guess I'm getting the message that we'd better assemble our new demographics schema sooner rather than later. | 19:31 |
| th1a | There is no pretense that what is there now is close to adequate. | 19:31 |
| budgester | Sure, any clues on what the demographic data may conatin initaially | 19:31 |
| th1a | Actually, what we did the first time through was based on the SIF person objects. | 19:32 |
| budgester | And does that actually work ? | 19:32 |
| th1a | It just gives you lots of fields. | 19:32 |
| budgester | Because I didn't see anything in my demo install | 19:32 |
| th1a | I mean, like, two years ago. | 19:33 |
| th1a | I don't think you quite understand what I have in mind. | 19:34 |
| budgester | What do you have in mind | 19:34 |
| th1a | Before we had, I don't know, seven screens of demographic data for each kid. | 19:34 |
| budgester | Probably missed that release | 19:35 |
| th1a | Then we started using SchoolTool at a couple schools and they were like "we don't need all this crap." | 19:35 |
| budgester | But we do need this other crap that you don't have in htere | 19:35 |
| budgester | about right ? | 19:35 |
| th1a | And the developers weren't happy with how it was implemented because I'd let a different developer do it his way. | 19:35 |
| budgester | Can I have another rant | 19:36 |
| th1a | So we scrapped that, and what is in there now is just a minimal set that one of the schools needed. | 19:36 |
| th1a | Go ahead. | 19:36 |
| budgester | Do you know how hard it is to get into the development of schooltool | 19:36 |
| budgester | Damn near impossible | 19:36 |
| th1a | I am well aware of that. | 19:37 |
| budgester | I ran an opensource helpdesk project (IRM) in php, and the level of work done in that was astounding | 19:37 |
| th1a | Well, SchoolTool is what it is. | 19:38 |
| th1a | In the longer run I think we can make it somewhat more accessible. | 19:39 |
| budgester | I really hope so | 19:39 |
| th1a | There are PHP open source school MIS's. | 19:39 |
| budgester | this is why I was banging on about the SOAP stuff | 19:39 |
| th1a | Have you looked at them? | 19:39 |
| budgester | Yup, they are all pretty much dead | 19:39 |
| th1a | Hm. Not really. | 19:39 |
| th1a | Open Admin and Centre and its many forks are still going. | 19:40 |
| th1a | Not that I'm trying to get rid of you. ;-) | 19:41 |
| budgester | But I can see that canonical will be able to support the system in the future and comply with govenrment regs etc | 19:41 |
| budgester | That waht Mark does for you guys | 19:41 |
| th1a | Yes, we have our advantages. | 19:42 |
| th1a | And really, development has come along well the past two years. | 19:42 |
| th1a | We rushed SchoolBell, etc. out and then ran into a brick wall and had to mostly reboot. | 19:42 |
| th1a | Anyway, getting back to demographics... | 19:43 |
| budgester | We used school bell until this july when my server crashed | 19:43 |
| budgester | and god knows how you back a ZODB up | 19:44 |
| th1a | http://book.schooltool.org/htmlhelp/database.html | 19:44 |
| budgester | All gone now using zimbra for that | 19:44 |
| th1a | I guess I need to get rolling on the "what demographics will be in 1.0" discussion. | 19:44 |
| budgester | Please | 19:44 |
| budgester | And if I can help let me know | 19:45 |
| th1a | OK. You'll see something this week. I've got the UK CDE or whatever they call it. | 19:45 |
| budgester | Is there a wiki/ | 19:45 |
| budgester | Where will the discussion be | 19:46 |
| budgester | on the mailing list ? | 19:46 |
| th1a | I'm still more of a mailing list guy actually. | 19:46 |
| budgester | Me too, IRC is nice but difficult to keep track of discussions | 19:46 |
| th1a | Yes, you can only do so much on IRC. | 19:47 |
| th1a | And I tend to never come back to wikis. | 19:47 |
| budgester | nice talking to you, I've going home now | 19:47 |
| budgester | prolly be logged back on there in a bout an hour | 19:47 |
| th1a | Have a good evening! | 19:47 |
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