Upto Halloween… October 31, 2007
Posted by albaroud in Uncategorized.Tags: session crossover
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Overview:
SSG for now, is pretty much done. A Select box has to be fixed, and redundant xml document links in teh results page have to be removed. These are trivial jobs. CDLG still has a fair amount of work to be done. All of this work centers around the form. The DVD header option does not work, and a lot of small state errors exist, depending on the distribuitionm and template selected in the single.jsp page. Slowly…approximate solutions converge to a perfect product; the convergence rate is quite a painful one.
Events:
- Bought Key Chains, some books for the employee charitable fund. Got JSP, Storage network and EJB books. Should be very useful for contract work
- It has been learned that David will be moving away from the management of the UIGR database and website. This means I can fill this void- and more specifically…learn SQL. From my experience with student jobs, SQL is one of the big 3 (Java, SQL, XML).
- SSG has been put on ICHAN temporarily, until dynamic class loaders can be implemented, or the MDS machine is ready to host it.
Project Notes:
- SSG:
- a VERY, VERY subtle problem was discovered with SSG: sessions were being shared. (“Session crossover”) It was originally thought that objects were being stored in the Application scope (false). Then, it was thought that special configuration files were causing shared (or one master, single session) on WAS (false also). Finally, synchronization and session issues with threads were thought to be the source of this (too complicated; there was only one thread!). It turns out (after a week of sporatic work on this problem), that the <%! tag for JSP pages was the culprit. The “!” causes any delcarations to BE SHARED AMONG sessions. Even the rational architects who tried to help me didnt pick this one up. Its quite amazing that one character caused so much pain. Owned.
- upgrade to FF2 helped to fix form problems 
- CDLG:
- Much work on the form.jsp was done. Howver, sporatic errors (particularly, with box highlighting and error checking), still exist. These are slowly being destroyed, as a perfect form rises from my work.
- Some major bugs still exist in the back end of this web application. DVD header does not work, languages do not display for the single stream, things overlap, do not show up.
- A serious code cleaning/efficency assessment has to be done before this project launches. There are too many print statements everyhwere…and the form.jsp is a real mess.
- The barcodes dont work! It seems that this is not related to the barcode algorithm: as it was unchanged, and the CDLG V1 works fine (regarding barcodes). It might have to do with compression, or logo image spacing beside the barcode. Steve Murphy is dealing with this.
Mistakes:
- communication with team, organization has been unsatisfactory (at least i think: i could be doing a better job here).
- need to tackle problems more head on; less bandaid solutions.
Upto October 10th, 2007 October 9, 2007
Posted by albaroud in Uncategorized.add a comment
Overview:
SSG is due FRIDAY. However, most of the hurdles have been overcome. All that is left is, getting the image swapping code to work successfully; as of it, it is uncertain if it is fully possible. I designed a really nice Queue algorithm to solve this problem in very few steps; it would be a shame if Corel Draw’s native coordinate system made it impossible to work.
Events:
- SSG Due friday
- Dry run of SSG went smoothly, on tuesday; all test cases passed. Julie, Lesley and Kathy found numberous typing mistakes; this is Lesley’s department however.
- Will be recruited by Nick Sharp soon enough, to code product mock ups for his team.
- Unfortunately, Steve Murphy will be put behind, because the barcode generator code is not fully operational.
- ECF bake sales, book sales, garage sales are on this week; should be interesting.
Project Notes:
- SSG:
- many, many minor errors have been fixed in the front end.
- hover help has been activated successfully.
- error checking was redone for SSG; one less field is required.
- Ian has yet to fix the security/session errors; he has been reassigned these tasks.
- the zip file problem has been repaired; the entire directory structure is now hidden, thanks to the -j option for winzip.
Mistakes:
- should have finished barcode stuff today.
- really need to get more sleep….:(
Upto October 2nd, 2007 October 3, 2007
Posted by albaroud in Uncategorized.add a comment
Overview:
The SSG and CDLG are progressing, at a discontinuous rate. Fatigue, and strange Rational problems reduced productivity. The rational errors were solved by Ian Chan: apparently, to solve multiple configuration exceptions, one has to delete the Enterprise projects (the were erroneously referencing ghost Web projects, on other users machines!). Somehow, CVS became corrupted, saving these ear paths into the configuration files; upon updating, this caused havoc on other developers machines.
Events:
– finalized todo list for SSG and CDLG
- Solved rational Errors. SSG still cannot be run on seanm, but is hostable on ichan .
- Machine damage: a power surge on seanm caused a full shut down. The power on password was forgotten, and had to be reset by IBM technicians. The Machine is now funcitonal, and hosting CDLG. And the new password is even memorable.
- assigned Ian some tasks: fix SSG security session bug, fix his parts of the CDLG code (line breaks, control character problems)
-currently, in the process of haggling for new pool cues/tables for staff.
- got 2 pool cues by mistake! I only bought one.
- need to somehow fill in a command line string for winzip, so it does not zip the entire directory for SSG.
- learned about the XMLHTTP.responseText property in AJAX; will help for InfoDump lateron….
Project Notes:
- SSG:
- now, 5 logos have been added to the project. An idealized algorithm was produced, using load/unload queues, and then FIFO principals to arrange the non-deleted icons sequentially. Unfortunately, the logos are all different sizes; given Corel Draw’s limitations, a compromise was made between designers and programmer (myself). The algorithm is not ideal, but at least it is not a brute force solution (make if branches for EVERY case of the five logos = 5!, or 1000s of line of code :<).
- updated templates, will test them out.
- updated the download paths in the E: directory; broken links are resolved.
- CDLG:
- using radio buttons to toggle off text input fields is proving insanely annoying (javascript just wont work in FF).
- 1/2 done the form
-fixed minor errors lying around the project.
- need to fix backend: handling of the *ip for the dSW STG option;the multiple.jsp addition of distribution type to brand title for 3 templates, validation code for multiple servlet, change “multiple” -> “ibm” thoughout the project.
Mistakes:
- again, better organization is needed.
