[Clipart] I hope you have backups.

Sat Feb 5 10:17:05 PST 2011

I see. I guess that is a problem with a test site, if it suddenly gets
completely overhauled and the old goodies lost as you describe. How
stable is OCAL now, in terms of having plans on changing platforms
again in the next, say, two years?

Also of course there's the time waste of doing something on the test
site and then transplanting it to the live site, I know how it is. The
way I sort of solve that in my web apps is to just change to which
version I am pointing at the time, which is easy and quick to do. So
let's say I have app_A which points to DB_A and app_test which points
to DB_test (which are copies of the _A versions, although the DB does
not need to be current, just to hold some representative data). I mess
around with app_test and modifications go to DB_test. If everything
woks as expected and data does not get corrupted or lost, I then
immediately put app_test in app_A's place. In the future, when I'm
thinking of modifications, I copy app_A to app_test and tell it to use
DB_test and modify that. Works for one person, but would it work with
multiple developers? Of course that's what version control was
invented for, but I don't have experience on using that for
multi-developer cases and don't know if it would be
desirable/overkill/whatever in OCAL's case. Just throwing ideas out
there.

Of course, when the modification is trivial or has little potential
bad consequences (i.e. it would damage data) I just do it on the live
version of my apps and pages.

Anyway, even if a test site is undesirable, if possible a downloadable
OCAL site (DB schema included) for developers would be good for
noobies to get up to speed quicker before messing with the real thing.

Or, if the general consensus is that the risk is acceptable, then
we'll just hack away with reckless abandon! OK, maybe not that much...
:-)

Cheers
J

On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 12:51 PM, chovynz <chovynz at gmail.com> wrote:
> I don't think you can do any worse that what happened yesterday. :)
>
> For the most part, I'd suggest you relax about not comfortable about working
> on a live site. That's one of the reasons why I put the "chovynz is
> working!" sign up, to make people aware that weird things could happen.
>
> I do understand the thinking though, which is why it's taken me this long to
> get to where I am with coding OCAL. However, now that I've done editing ON
> the live site for awhile, I now think that a test site is a waste of time. I
> mean we already had a BETA site with so much more features and fixed bugs on
> it, then when this one came through I was disappointed to see most of the
> changes was lost.
>
> You have good thoughts, though. All I'm doing is commenting on the idea. I'm
> against having a test site, and just want other devs to just jump in on the
> live site. If my opinion weighs anything, my vote is against, but i don't
> want the discussion to stop. Ultimately the choice is Jon's/server owners.
>
> Convince him either way.
>
>
> On Sun, Feb 6, 2011 at 5:54 AM, J. Alves <alvesjmp at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> By the way, I was wondering about that these days. Maybe this has been
>> discussed before and I missed it, in which case I apologize for the
>> repetition... Just let me know and I return to under me bridge. :-)
>>
>> I am thinking of trying to learn Aiki, php and all that to be able to
>> help with the code side of things. But I would never feel comfortable
>> touching the live site even after I'm fluent in those technologies,
>> let alone during the learning process, so I was hoping there was a
>> parallel code or site for this type of activity. You know, a sort of
>> private mirror of OpenClipart's code (not necessary to have the full
>> database, although that would be nice too) where people would develop
>> and tweak without worry that the main site was getting screwed up (as
>> its looks were when I looked 5 min ago, for example). Then, when we
>> were confident that the modifications are working and nothing is
>> getting damaged in the DB by our actions, then it would be time to
>> patch the old code with the new stuff. That's what I do with my little
>> web apps that are not important and don't have any traffic beyond two
>> or three labs and not 1,000s of visitors a day like OCAL. Is anything
>> like that in place for OCAL? I suspect not. The next best alternative
>> of having a working development branch of the site would be to give
>> people the full code for installing at their home server so they can
>> work on it there (is that available? I'd like that). Then they would
>> send the modifications either to the main site or to a (few) central
>> person(s) who'd integrate the code with the live site every once in a
>> while.
>>
>> Imagine for example if I try to solve the tags problem or try to
>> implement the "idea mill" I registered in the blueprints (is that the
>> place for ideas of new features?) or whatever, and in the process ALL
>> tags for ALL cliparts get mangled to something unexpected and useless.
>> That would be a huge disaster and I'd have to hide from librarians for
>> the rest of my life. :-) OK, I suppose there are backups, but still a
>> pain in the proverbial.
>>
>> Cheers
>> J
>>
>> On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 6:02 AM, Bassel Safadi <bassel.safadi at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > it seems a server side problem, I emailed osuosl about, hope to get it
>> > back
>> > soon
>> >
>> > On Sat, Feb 5, 2011 at 5:43 AM, chovynz <chovynz at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> To Jon or Bassel
>> >>
>> >> I hope you have backups.
>> >> I'm tired of the interlinked problems.
>> >>
>> >> The only thing I did was change one value in the css.
>> >> div.r-img-i {width:110px;}
>> >>   to
>> >> div.r-img-i {width:100px;}
>> >>
>> >> And the whole site crashed. This after successfully already unwinding
>> >> much
>> >> of the css spagehtti code. Fucking stupid.
>> >> Now, I can't login to admin, and no-one can see the site. Nothing I can
>> >> do
>> >> from my end. Someone with ssh access is going to have to fix whatever
>> >> went
>> >> wrong.
>> >>
>> >> I was editing the "main" widget css at the time. I hope you've got a
>> >> log
>> >> file of what happened, because I'm sure I did nothing that would cause
>> >> this,
>> >> since I was only playing with the layouts of the cliparts that were
>> >> displayed on the main page to get them to fit better. If i did do
>> >> something,
>> >> then I need to know what it was, so that I can avoid that in the
>> >> future.
>> >>
>> >> I'm going to take a break. sheesh.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Cheers
>> >> Chovynz
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > Bassel Safadi
>> > http://bassel.ws
>> > http://aikilab.org
>> > Global +1 323-545-3855
>> > Singapore +65 93488349
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > clipart mailing list
>> > clipart at lists.freedesktop.org
>> > http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/clipart
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>> João Marcelo Pereira Alves (J) - Genomics, Molecular Phylogeny and
>> Evolution
>> Dept. Microbiology & Immunology - MCV/VCU - Richmond, VA, USA
>> f. 1-804-828-3897 / 804-852-1234 - http://bioinfo.lpb.mic.vcu.edu
>
>
>
> --
> Cheers
> Chovynz
>

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
João Marcelo Pereira Alves (J) - Genomics, Molecular Phylogeny and Evolution
Dept. Microbiology & Immunology - MCV/VCU - Richmond, VA, USA
f. 1-804-828-3897 / 804-852-1234 - http://bioinfo.lpb.mic.vcu.edu