Status Report: 3/10-3/14

What I said/did:

- Factor D's most recent comments into the BSAR specs.

Done. I'll be posting it to the site and asking for his review on Monday.

- Implementing staff features.

Didn't really do much here. Ended up doing some edits to the database layout and looking into how/if I can accommodate a feature request. In contemplating how the feature would work, I generated a number of questions I needed them to answer. When I forwarded the questions, the request got dropped.

At one of the sessions I went to at the conference, there was a discussion on users asking for features and how it quickly bloats software. The determination was that users should have to go over some sort of hurdle when making a feature request. If it's too easy, then they'll toss up any old idea, even if hardly anyone would use it. This was proven true in the above example, and now I'm debating how to incorporate a small "barrier" for future feature requests to make sure it's something that people have really thought about and need, rather than just a whim.

- Reading up on MySQL and maybe some other technologies for BSAR.

I'm working my way through some of the MySQL books. Will be ongoing for a while.

Next week:

- Assess and start training the new guy
- Meet w/ ASUH representative to get student-oriented feedback.
- Implementing staff features.
- Reading: MySQL and ?

While I wrote the above as a guide, it's going to be pretty fluid depending on what happens with new guy. I'll be playing things by ear next week.