Archive for the ‘WebFreeChart’ tag

On Pipelines, Expansive

It’s time to talk pipelines. Initially, I was going to talk timelines. But timelines have the problem of addressing time, which is very difficult when you have 40+ hours of activities and school to do during the week. So, pipelines.

I’d like to start by announcing the completion of ISSO3. I’ll go into the details of why it took so incredibly long to finish in a future post, but you should know that it is finally done. What does the completion of ISSO3 mean? It means that all PHP projects can now resume development and use this framework. ISSO3 also requires PHP 5.2, which means that any future major releases of PHP projects will require PHP5.

That’s one less thing in the pipeline!

But what else is in this (expansive) pipeline? (Note: This is roughly in order of when the items will be finished. I very may well skip around and work on various projects when I feel like it, but this order is based on how much work is done versus how much has to be done).

mkrcpt

I compile a lot of open source projects myself rather than using ports or fink. Many people are familiar with the make; make install process. One of the problems with make, though, is that there’s no uninstaller. This to me is a problem. So I decided to solve said problem. Enter two very small C programs: mkrcpt and unrcpt. Instead of typing make install, you would invoke mkrcpt. What mkrcpt does is it index all of the items in the installation path by last modified date, then runs make install for you, and reruns the index algorithm. It then stores all the changed files in a receipt file. If you ever want to uninstall a program, just run unrcpt.

What’s left: Testing and a few fixes to the receipt file format.

MacGDBp

PHP developers have access to a really cool extension called Xdebug that has remote debugging functionality via a protocol called GDBp. Both Windows and Linux have GUI clients for this protocol, but the Mac does not. The lack of a client irked me because the functionality is quite helpful.

What’s left : The basic functionality is all done, but there’s still a bit left to do to make it useable. Those items are: adding line numbers to source views, adding breakpoints (currently you use the xdebug_break() function in your code), and making an icon.

CMS

No, I’m not writing another CMS solution to compete with Joomla, ExpressionEngine, etc.. This is a private project for my university’s TV station. The website is going to be completely redone to allow for modular content blocks and dynamic templates. The project looks fairly straightforward, so it shouldn’t block things in the pipeline.

What’s left: I haven’t started writing a single line of code yet, but it’s completely planned out.

Bugdar 2

I am very excited about working on Bugdar 2, but as you can see, there are a lot of things in the pipeline. I’ll post more about this as the pipeline start’s clearing up and work begins.

What’s left: Everything.

NewzGrab

This is another Mac app that will take in Newzbin (.nzb) files and download them from your favorite NNTP server. I’ve only mapped out the classes and hand-drawn a mockup interface. More on this will be posted as work commences.

What’s left: Everything.

MyWishlist

A while ago I had a project called MyWishlist that allowed you to setup a wishlist site for you and your friends/family. I won’t go into the details here, but I’m rewriting it to be a hosted application as opposed to a downloaded one. Don’t expect it anytime soon because it’s a very low-priority item.

What’s left: Deciding what language to write it in. Ruby? PHP? Python? Who knows?!

WebFreeChart

This is a PHP5 OOP charting library. It’s boring to work on. But I need it. It’ll happen… eventually.

What’s left: Almost everything.

So, the above is a list of all the projects I’m juggling. It’s a lot. There is no timeline as to when things will be done. I wish I could give one, but with the amount of Real Life ™ things I have to do, I just work when I’m not tired, I’m in the mood, and I have free time. If those three stars align, progress gets made. I’ll keep you guys updated on any major developments. Your patience is appreciated.

The Bug Back-Log

If you’ve taken a look at the bug tracker recently, you’ll see quite a few bugs back-logged. I’m not ignoring them (I still check out each individual report when it’s posted or updated), and if the bug is critical I’ll, of course, fix it. But at the moment I’m focusing completely on finishing the rewrite of ISSO. My time is extraordinarily limited so things are taking a lot longer than expected, but I’m really excited to start work on Bugdar 2.0. Before I can get there, though, ISSO needs to be finished. Here’s a little update on what’s left to do for ISSO:

API

The API module is what I’m currently focusing on. The error system is getting an overhaul to use PHP5’s exception system instead of trigger_error(). Furthermore, the validation system is being rewritten to work with the new error system.

Db

Both MySQL and MySQLi modules are done and have complete unit tests. I still need to update the PostgreSQL module, however, because I don’t have Postgres on my laptop yet.

Graph

The graphing module, which has yet to be used in an application, is being removed. Instead, I have started a new project called WebFreeChart to take the place of it.

Pagination

I have yet to unit test and update the pagination module. This will pretty much stay the same, though instead of using templates (whose names are hard-coded), I’ll switch to hooks and callbacks.

Printer

The printer classes are used to generate the green-styled interface for admin control panels and the like. I have already rewritten the classes but I am unhappy with them because they’re so verbose to use. I’m now thinking of ditching it for XML-based (maybe even XSLT) generators. There’d be various XML tags for the existing classes and methods to generate form elements with the proper markup. This would separate the presentation from the logic, while still not having to worry about styling and direct HTML.

I hope to finish these things off soon to get working on Bugdar 2.0, but because my time is so limited, I really can’t give an ETA. I’ll try to keep posting updates so you’re aware of what’s going on.