Re: Roster status is unchanged (Re: Updates and summer efforts)

[jim@mercury.laney.edu]

Doug,

You are correct... the dataformat will probably work, because the scripts 
are written to hide the data format below a layer of abstraction. I had
designed it that way from the start; my eventual idea was to go to say a
distributed data model, and/or an sql database, but it didn't make sense
to recode what was working well. If you'd like to see a version that uses
this EDUML format, I'll look at it to see if it can be accomplished.

But that can be done fairly simply any time, what's needed to progress,
is to document the project. Once this is done, controlled releases can
be made that start by OOPizing the back end, then trying to swap an
EDUML front end in. But stablizing the project by going through and making
sure all the system calls are checked when the system returns control, to
see if errors occured, and design appropriate ways to handle them when
and how they do occur.

What is also important for the roster project, is that it gets into the
hands of someone besides me to evaluate it :)

Having said all that... if the k12 project is also written in perl, perhaps
it could use Roster::ServerType and Roster::ServerTypes::*, which can be
used more-or-less independantly. If you also use Roster::Server, you also
have to use Roster::People::User, since Roster::Server is a go-between that
receives the student record as a Roster::People::User.

To define those before closing, a Roster::ServerType is the abstraction of
a kind of server, for the purpose of adding accounts to it. Hidden behind
it are the specific modules Roster::ServerTypes::NT, UnixNewusers, a BSDI
flavor module, an NT module and two novell modules, one for 3.x that works
and the other for 4.x which only adds accounts. More work is needed for that;
does anyone know Novell4's UIMPORT command well? I need to be able to add
accounts, add groups, add student accounts to groups, remove student accounts
from groups, remove entire accounts and remove groups, by creating a "batch"
file of them, walking the file to the server and running the appropriate 
umport command(s). There's about 6 or 7 different operations I need to be 
able to do. Any help here?

-Jim