Tech Forum

Good point. However, I think I'd want the non-techies to just add wish list items and leave the initial how to for the Techie's to figure out. I suggest that those leaders start using http://www.returnandreport.org first so they can get a better conceptual understanding of how this may work. Just a thought...

GarysTurn wrote:The reason I brought this subject up is for the non Tech people to be more inclined to participate. Elders Quorum Presidents, High Priests Group Leaders and Relief Society Presidents. Many of these people would like to have some input into this project but will not be participating in the design or programming. Posting to the Wiki is not hard for most of us, but for some of these people email is a major accomplishment. I think a forum thread would be a way to include them. Joel in his TechTalk did list the forums as part of the process of defining these projects. I have no problem using the Wiki, but I know my High Priests Group leader would not be comfortable posting there.

I'm completely fine with a separate forum thread for "non-technical" people to contribute as long as we do capture those requirements in the wiki. The wiki should be the ultimate source of information. But we already have a lot of great information in the existing HT/VT thread. However, I have just added on the HT/VT page in the wiki a link to where people can post ideas. The forum is a better place if they want to "discuss" the ideas.

Tom

tomw wrote:I'm completely fine with a separate forum thread for "non-technical" people to contribute as long as we do capture those requirements in the wiki. The wiki should be the ultimate source of information. But we already have a lot of great information in the existing HT/VT thread. However, I have just added on the HT/VT page in the wiki a link to where people can post ideas. The forum is a better place if they want to "discuss" the ideas.

Tom

Moderators can not create a new Project heading. Can we get the "HT/VT Project" created under Projects in the Forum. With a sticky explaining the project, with links to the Wiki, and explain the purpose of the threads in the forum project area (discussion of features in the Wiki and for suggestions from those not part of the project). We could then link to a thread from the Wiki where discussions about features can take place. The discussion pages in the Wiki are not really adapted well for conversational discussions.

GarysTurn wrote:Moderators can not create a new Project heading. Can we get the "HT/VT Project" created under Projects in the Forum. With a sticky explaining the project, with links to the Wiki, and explain the purpose of the threads in the forum project area (discussion of features in the Wiki and for suggestions from those not part of the project). We could then link to a thread from the Wiki where discussions about features can take place. The discussion pages in the Wiki are not really adapted well for conversational discussions.

Excellent idea. I'll make that happen.

Tom

I'm confused. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this. I see that Brad Oldham recieved the tech award for this very project; however, it appears that you are starting from scratch. Why not start with what he did and improve upon it? From what I have seen it looks like he has dedicated alot of time, thought, and energy for this very project. What am I missing?

happy-one wrote:I'm confused. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this. I see that Brad Oldham recieved the tech award for this very project; however, it appears that you are starting from scratch. Why not start with what he did and improve upon it? From what I have seen it looks like he has dedicated alot of time, thought, and energy for this very project. What am I missing?

Hi happy-one....

What you are proposing is not a possibility for numerous reasons. Let's just leave it at that.

Brad O.

happy-one wrote:I'm confused. Perhaps someone can shed some light on this. I see that Brad Oldham recieved the tech award for this very project; however, it appears that you are starting from scratch. Why not start with what he did and improve upon it? From what I have seen it looks like he has dedicated alot of time, thought, and energy for this very project. What am I missing?

Happy-one, I cant speak for Brad and those involved in the church but the situation is not an uncommon one in the industry. I work for a global software company which has been successful because of organic grow through purchase of other companies. During this process you inherit products with very different code bases. Some of it bad, restricted etc and some of it very good but it might not suit your existing resources.
On top of that also comes reworking of UI, graphics etc to fit in with the existing product range.
You also have to think long term about what other functionality you want added in the future, your existing security, existing data and weigh up all these things against starting from the beginning.
At our place we have done both but the experience mostly tell us that for a big organisation it's best to start from the beginning again.

Many will then think the previous effort has then been wasted and I have had developers who too felt their work had "been destroyed" but in reality their work has not been wasted as it is because of their work and their experience we now are in a position to know where we are going in terms of functionality and what works and what needs improving. Afterall its not the coding that takes the majority of the time.

In relation to the church HT/VT project what Brad has achieved (me looking from the outside in) I think is a breakthrough and he has set the minimum standard for what needs to be achieved. hence why he deserves the award.

Well done, Brad.

Just to add 2 cents, there is another inherent reason why it might be better to start with a blank slate, copying some but not all of the functionality of ReturrnAndReport.

The exisiting system, since it was developed as an outside application, lacks any integration with MLS -- either for importing the official HT/VT assignments or exporting the statistics it gathers. That is probably its weakest point, necessitated by policy since it is not an official Church application.

But the new system presumably can be designed from the ground up to be integrated with MLS somehow.

dkjorgi wrote:Happy-one, I cant speak for Brad and those involved in the church but the situation is not an uncommon one in the industry. I work for a global software company which has been successful because of organic grow through purchase of other companies. During this process you inherit products with very different code bases. Some of it bad, restricted etc and some of it very good but it might not suit your existing resources.
On top of that also comes reworking of UI, graphics etc to fit in with the existing product range.
You also have to think long term about what other functionality you want added in the future, your existing security, existing data and weigh up all these things against starting from the beginning.
At our place we have done both but the experience mostly tell us that for a big organisation it's best to start from the beginning again.

Many will then think the previous effort has then been wasted and I have had developers who too felt their work had "been destroyed" but in reality their work has not been wasted as it is because of their work and their experience we now are in a position to know where we are going in terms of functionality and what works and what needs improving. Afterall its not the coding that takes the majority of the time.

In relation to the church HT/VT project what Brad has achieved (me looking from the outside in) I think is a breakthrough and he has set the minimum standard for what needs to be achieved. hence why he deserves the award.

Well done, Brad.

Well said. Brad's application is the blueprint of what will be created. However there are many considerations. Brad has been most cooperative in this process and although it would have been great to take his app and "turn it on" for the Church, we had to consider other issues. When designing for the whole Church, we have to consider internationalization issues and laws, technology that allows us to move data to the edge of the network, highly available support for a platform we currently do not deploy globally on, integration with our existing systems and data sharing, etc. None of this should be interpreted as diminishing what Brad has done, rather how something has to integrate into our current environment.

Tom

boomerbubba wrote:Just to add 2 cents, there is another inherent reason why it might be better to start with a blank slate, copying some but not all of the functionality of ReturrnAndReport.

The exisiting system, since it was developed as an outside application, lacks any integration with MLS -- either for importing the official HT/VT assignments or exporting the statistics it gathers. That is probably its weakest point, necessitated by policy since it is not an official Church application.

But the new system presumably can be designed from the ground up to be integrated with MLS somehow.

I'm not going to go into all the reasons why, but let me make it clear that the above is not one of the reasons why RAR cannot be used.

Brad O.