workQuestions.doc
Goals:
* Be knowledgeable about:
- the Foundations code base
- the development process pertaining to it
* Be able to locate pertinent code and self-sufficient in finding related code.
0. Let's define, at a high level, what I need to know to be productive right now. For each of those high-level things, let's dig down and outline a plan and resources.
1. Where does the "Foundations" code base reside physically? (Bothell, San Diego, etc.)
San Diego or BBY (keeps moving)
https://acspd.classinfo.com/workshop
all stuff is stored in svn
2. What hardware is it stored on? (Single server, etc.)
subversion server
(talk to __ __ about)
*don't need to care about this
3. How often is the codebase backed up to secondary storage?
*don't need to care about this
4. Is SVN our only access mechanism? What other ways do we have to access it across the network (and remotely)?
yes-ish
there is also a code review that ties in through subversion that allows ...?
-goals are set during each iteration, added to iterations page, and that's what's used for creation of jira items and jira numbers, as process goes on robbie will create these jira items and put those on the twiki page and link to jira as a web portal.
-JIRA is an issue tracking system. based on a workflow (uses 4 people types: designer, developer, manager, tester). links on iteration/jira will lead to design docs, dev docs, etc. has a status for tasks such as design, developement, implementation in progress (the one I'll be setting things to), test-ish state (requires a code review in crucible that will go to valya, myo, kathie and north)
-CRUCIBLE is the code review tool. allows notation and feedback. ties into subversion, shows you what changed, can select lines and add a comment.
5. In order to access the code base remotely do I only need to VPN in? Does that give me full access?
yes and yes
6. What other code dependencies do I need to be concerned with and where do those code bases exist? Do I have access rights to those code bases?
7. How are builds handled? How is versioning handled? (Example: What I've seen prior to this is a build tree that is linked to the versioning software. Branches of the versioning tree are incorporated into builds based on version number. Builds can be configured to include prior branches of any separate part of the code base in the case that the current version breaks.)
8. Who are the software testers assigned to Foundations and where do they work?
9. What is a "user"? I ask this because I need to differentiate different kinds of user. In the example of the Bass Fishing Tournament, I know there will be fisherman/sportsman users. There will also be staffer users. The people hosting the tournament form a class of user. Our internal people configuring the software form another class of user. Based on some of our API discussions, I think I've heard "user" used to mean "coders using our service" or "coders without direct access to our code base that will be calling our code".
10. Definitions:
--Workspace:
--Widget:
--Component:
11. Verify correctness: (From the Configuration XML Overview). An Application hosts workspaces. Workspaces host widgets. "Component"...?!
12. Application XML allows "fragment replacement", replacing certain words/phrases/terms which make sense to a particular market. What's the scope of this replacement? Where in the pipeline do these changes occur? Is this done using resource files from which the text is drawn?
13. Can we please add a feature to the twiki that shows the document originator as well as a log of the update history?
14.a. https://acspd.classinfo.com/bin/view/ActiveFoundation/JiraFND97 says that "all xml files are accessed by calling web service APIs"...does this include application configuration xml? This begs questions about the build cycle for the final deployed applications. Are there files that can/should be built into the SWFs? Why/why not?
14.b. Walk me through what happens from the point that a solution configuration is begun by one of the configuration people...up through the release of the configured application as a final product.
15. https://acspd.classinfo.com/bin/view/ActiveFoundation/JiraFND97 says "initial folder structure" of what? where are these folders? folders for what?
16. https://acspd.classinfo.com/bin/view/ActiveFoundation/JiraFND97: what is "the renderer"?
17. Where is Workshop.Application.xsd (used for verifying appxml.*.xml documents) (and also Workshop.Widget.xsd, Workshop.AppDef.xsd)
18. https://acspd.classinfo.com/bin/view/ActiveFoundation/JiraFND97: The xml and verifying xsd files are:
widget.*.xml Workshop.Widget.xsd
appdef.*.xml Workshop.AppDef.xsd
appxml.*.xml Workshop.Application.xsd
Why do 2 of these match and one does not?!
19. What files are relevant to me right now? The reason I ask is that I spent a lot of time reading files related to https://acspd.classinfo.com/bin/view/ActiveFoundation/JiraFND97 only to find that it seems to apply to Workshop Server...which isn't my area.
20. https://acspd.classinfo.com/bin/view/ActiveFoundation/JiraFND97 The "Flex client" (is this the workshop client?) asks for a given fragment (what's a fragment?) by unique name (what kind of unique? globally? within scope of application? by directory?), the server then "finds" the file (do you mean it searches? or does it just open the file based on directory structure?).
21. What is a CRUDList, a CRUDForm and EventDetails?