One to one

Hi,

Ok, at the end of last week was my 121 with Bill. we discussed a number of things currently going on.

Upcoming

Upcoming projects will be focused on the Coldfusion migration project (ITS066), there are four applications in this batch to be converted. The will be upgraded from cf6 to cf9 and where suitable will be upgraded to the mach-ii framework to start bringing all our applications in line with each other and limit the amount of variation between development styles going into our projects.

We are looking at around three weeks quoted per project breaking down to 6.5 days of build time estimated. however at the recent meeting with the other developers it is becoming apparent this may take more that 6.5 days to transfer over to the new framework as this is really the first mach-ii build for two out of the three of us.

Feedback

Edge went well, despite the project being a little eccentric we have delivered the web application the client wanted, we are currently sitting waiting for completion of deployment. I still need to do some configuration on the live server and that subject to other departments doing their thing. the feedback has been positive from Bill (my manager) and from David (project manager), as I mentioned before David wasn't keen on a student doing the work but I think I managed to convince him otherwise and that's a great validator to my ability.

What have I learned

• What happens when the SDLC is allowed to deviate from its structure
• software development is a personal thing that can vary quite alot from developer to developer.
• the difference between the developer and the client, such as requests into the build and the effect that can be caused by off spec changes and delays in getting requirements.
• The importance of testing, testing, testing, testing, testing.....
• how attitudes and opinions change between factions of those involved in the dev process and the effects it has on the build. (some want responsibility, some don't that should be but each person should take responsibility for the effects of their involvement)

This is really all there for this meeting, the post will be regarding the migration project.

ITS066 - Issues

I have been speaking to martin about some of the problems I have had with this project, it appears martins been having similar issues.

Initially we were advised to take the code from source safe, connect to the required schema's and develop on our local machines, my issues were as follows:

• code incomplete in VSS
• live software using Apache mod rewrite to disguise the url string when navigating
• file not included in the software pulled out of live
• no password for database access (Infokeep was wrong)
• several days to get 'official' access to the live code
• no Technical architecture documents
• the Dev version of the site was broken so I had to spend half a
  day debugging the old version

I'm glad its not just me having the issues, I was starting to think that it was just me and I was somehow the cause.

ITS032 - Edge Database - Update 5 - issues

Lots of problems this week.

We are having issues with the authentication system which protects the university web software, it appears that the directory we are hosting this site from is not EASE protected therefore not secured.

Further to this the application will look to interact with the ease system and without it will not work.

Unfortunately I have been ill over tuesday, wednesday and thursday and missed those days but catching up on return I found that not much had changed.

What I was finding is that getting my site security sorted wasn't anyone else's priority but mine. I asked martin to double check what I was identifying as the fault to make sure I was right and then started speaking to the people that could make the changes I needed.

I contacted Hugh Brown from applications management via Unidesk, he was able to make the necessary changes to the server infrastructure which included the secure connectivity. He explained what he could do for me and after discussing this with David the project manager he was able to get things moving.

We are now waiting for confirmation that this has been done.

New Project ITS066 - CF9 Migration

I am about to begin a new project which will server to bring old applications up to date. The university has a number of applications which have been in place for a few years and still run on the old Coldfusion 8 and Fusebox technologies.

I will be part of a small team put together to bring these applications up to date.

I have been speaking to mike this morning about my experience with mach-ii, I don't yet have experience with it and the migration project will include basing the applications on the new framework. As frameworks have become ubiquitous in web applications it is important for me to get this experience.

Mike assures me its not as difficult as it appears at first glance.