Week 3 and 4

Another 2 weeks have gone by since the last update. I don't really have a good reason for missing the last one. I planned to do it Saturday evening as I have before, and then Saturday evening came and I was having so much fun playing with my kids that I went to bed and forgot until Monday.
Anyway... In the last two weeks it feels like the team has gotten off the ground finally. I think we have now had code committed by each member.

Ryan F. has been working on finishing the Application page. He wants to write the whole thing and THEN commit it to the repo. I keep trying to convince him to commit his work as he goes. As it is I don't really know how far he has to go, or if there are issues.
Tyler had a hard time getting started, but after working through the hangups he had getting started, he has been making good progress on the "manage courses" screen.
I'm not sure about Jared. He seems very knowledgeable, has not expressed any concerns, and had lots of suggestions, but has asked for database passwords three times, and had not started any work until this week. I hope to see more
Ryan O. has been coding a lot. I think he has written more code than anyone else. I haven't seen as much of the "Project management" stuff from him, and I have tried to provide some of that, but genuinely DO NOT want to be the one whose job is communication with the client.
As for me, I've been working on install/backup/restore functions for the system, which should make it easier to deploy and test, as well as to make schema changes if they are needed. I spend about 30-40 minutes researching for every 10 minutes writing code.

Oh, and community based service is still all good. yay.

Week	Team Meetings	Project Work	Journal Writing	CBL Hours with Client	Other *
One	2	5	0.5	0	4
Two	1.5	9	0.5	0	0
Three	2	4	0.5	0.5	0
Four	2	6	0.5	0	0
Totals	7.5	24	2	0.5	4

Week 2... missing stuff

I guess there are some technical specifics that need to be in the journal entry each week...
Somehow I missed that the first time around... anyway, to try to get off on the right foot, I'm going to sort of retroactively add them here.

First: Time matrix of project time

	Team Meetings	Project Work	Journal Writing	CBL Hours with Client	Other *
Week 1	2	5	0.5	0	4
Week 2	1.5	9	0.5	0	0
Totals	3.5	14	1	0	4

Second thing: Thoughts on Community based learning:
Hmmm. This is an interesting point. Back last semester the old team chose to go with a Free software license, and use popular open source tools to implement it: PHP, MySQL and Apache. I know we are doing this software project for one small School in Africa, but I can't help thinking if we do a good job, most of this work could be used by anyone. Public School, private School, homeschooling parents. I don't know, maybe that is thinking a little big for a student project

Just so I don't look like a complete retard for posting a nine year old photo, here is the most recent family portrait we had taken. We managed to work out a deal (small local photo business) so that they sold us the digital originals along with the pictures instead of holding them hostage and throwing them away like most of the big outfits do.
It makes me very happy to have those digital image files.
I'll never have professional portraiture done by someone who is not willing to give me the full rights to the work I have paid for.
Don't get me wrong, I expect to pay a little more, but the way I see it, ALL professional photography falls under work for hire copyright and rightly ought to be owned by the customer. But I guess that ends up being a contractual deal, doesn't it.
Wow! I didn't mean to turn that into a rant. Anyway, The folks in the image are
right to left:
Back- Connor: 14, Zac: 12,
Middle- Me: Old, Amie: Slightly older, Joshua: 9, Eloise: 8,
Front- David: 3, Gabriel: 18 months

Gotta love the surly teenagers in the back. [rolleyes] You two will be so proud when you are old enough for YOUR kids to be looking at this photo.

Going back in time... old photos

I came across a box full of undeveloped film last month. 30 Rolls! It cost a fortune to have them developed (and I'm still kicking myself for doing it during Christmastime when we are already strapped), but I figured I'd better do it while there still is a such a thing as 35mm 1 hour photo...

This amazing picture was in among those developed. It is Joshua, who is now 9, in a carrier/carseat, looking very unhappy in the snow. Dated December 3rd, 2001
Those brilliant blue eyes were so striking I just had to post it.

Week 2

I kind of feel like things are getting into a groove for the project.
The site is back up (in fact, it is up in three separate places), so we can definitely hack without fear of bringing the world down.

There are still a couple of team members who have not done much.
I'm a little concerned, but I'll give them a little while. We have a list of tasks on the google code site. I have told everybody which tasks are do-able now...

I hope we don't have anyone who is waiting to be told what to do.
Fortunately, since I am not the "Project lead" I am free to continue acting as technical project lead, while someone else manages the people aspects of the project. That is the way I prefer it.

Week 1

This first week has been pretty crazy.
Here is what happened to my team of software developers:
started with 4.
lost 2 (including the student who was doing a good job as project manager).
Got 5 new members.
Instructor suggested that one or two of the NEW people should lead the project.

That last bit was the source of most of the chaos and problems. One of our prospective leaders -- as his first suggestion -- before even looking at the work done so far --- wanted to scrap all the existing code and start from scratch in C#. Because it would be easier to test. Insane.

I will need to actively push the technical direction of the project. Before it was very consensus driven. Now I'm going to start looking for tasks and handing them out...
I think I'll start using the built in bugtracker in google code.
Hopefully I won't end up in conflict with someone who thinks hes supposed to be the boss.

Lux Aeturna: A humanitarian software project

I created this blog with the intent of writing about my interests and hobbies...
but wait! I'm in my last year of college. I don't have time for interests of hobbies.
A new Semester of School has rolled around and somehow one of the classes has a service component and is requiring a weekly journal entry.
So I guess I will be updating this blog weekly for the next little while.

The class is CS4750, at Weber State University.
The way it somehow ended up a service learning class is that our professor, Rich Fry, managed to get us hooked up with an opportunity to write a software system for a school in Ghana.
Some of my classmates (alas, not me, due to funds)will be travelling to Ghana to install the system and train the school staff in its use.

I am very excited about what lies ahead over the next few months.