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.

ITS032 - Edge Database - Update 4

Edge was tested at the start of the week by Martin Jones, there are 7 bugs in the application, these are as follows:

• HTMLEditFormat() formatting needed on text inputs (prevents special characters being passed to the application and database)
• url parameters in Edit pages should be checked
• Skills/Work Experience/Schools/Colleges/Status should be unique
• id's should not be preallocated in add new records
• Add Opportunity further information text area is limited to 250 characters not words
• template path to holding page should be changed to relative path
• login check to get userlevel needs amended to return just that data and nothing else

I have been working through these issues this week, updating JIRA where they are recorded and they are all now resolved, this passes it through the peer test stage.

The next stage is the user acceptance test, this has been arranged by David for next week.

ITS032 - Edge Database - Update 3

This week I have been working through the task list for the edge project as follows:

Project: ITS032 Employability Opportunities Database
Task: Build tasks - remaining development work
Date: 31/01/2011 TO 11/02/2011
Duration: 10.0d
Effort: 6.0d

Project: ITS032 Employability Opportunities Database
Task: Website integration
Date: 14/02/2011 TO 18/02/2011
Duration: 5.0d
Effort: 1.5d

Project: ITS032 Employability Opportunities Database
Task: System documentation
Date: 14/02/2011 TO 18/02/2011
Duration: 5.0d
Effort: 1.0d

These have been broken up into further tasks using the JIRA application (see Edge update 2 for the task list).

Styling

The application was to be styled by the multi media team (web styling is one of their specialisms), this isn't going ahead any more and I've been asked to do the work. I dont have a problem with this, in fact its another area where I need the experience. The issue here is it was scheduled to be done by a professional in that area and I'm not confident I do the job to that standard.

Alex carter from the media team has provided styling templates to use and apply to the application I have built. I do have styling experience but only from university, however I have done the work and some modification was needed to some of the user facing pages however it has come together quite well.

Testing

The application will be peer tested next week, I will update at this point.

ITS032 - Edge Database - Update 2

This is week two of the Edge project.

So far I have done basic familiarisation with the existing software which I have touched on in my previous entry. I still feel that I am not fully confident in my ability to carry out the required remedial work on the system AND the project tasks. I also believe that this is normal and what I am about to learn will fill that confidence gap.

Meeting 03/02/11

Myself and my project manager attended a meeting at the careers office with two representatives Darcey Gillie and Gavin McCabe. The purpose of this meeting was to ascertain what state the project was in, what work still needed to be done and revise the original requirements and make any required adjustments.

We came away with a number of action points from the client which were discussed and agreed on at the meeting. We have noted at this point the client is asking for features that were not in the initial requirements, as we have a limited budget I feel that agreeing to these will take us well beyond the time/funding allocated.

The outstanding points are as follows:

1. The website is no longer planned to be embedded in Polopoly, but will be available through the Employability website, linked from here: http://www.employability.ed.ac.uk/studentdevelopmentgateway.html This obviously means that we will not have the Polopoly work but will probably have to work with Darcey and co on integrating the application into the above site.

2. Gavin asked about getting two extra fields added to the database, and the related forms/code. These were email address and senders name on Submissions. You told him that would amount to a couple of hours work and this was acceptable. If it is any more, let me know so we can discuss with them.

3. The Notes box on Opportunities needs to be removed from the 'public' Opportunity display. We also discussed making the 'Further Info' box larger.

4. Saving Search results was discussed - all fields should be included and you said you would look at the formatting options for saved searches (e.g PDF)

5. Reporting is waiting on more info from Gavin before starting any work on this. One option I thought of afterwards was using an ODBC connection that would allow them to access the data using MS programs, but with read only access. I will pursue this.

Looking at the tasks in our documentation, the following are outstanding

1. Set up CF email schedule - this is estimated at 1 day's effort, and you said that this was straightforward enough to do.

2. Save search results to file (3 days) - the solution for this will involve some investigation but can be based on work done by Alyson.

3. Managing submitted Opportunities - this has been done.

4. Scheduled task to change status to 'archived' (0.5 day) - again, you thought this would be easy to do.

On a personal note I feel the meeting went well, I felt confident and gave a good demonstration of the software as it currently stands.