[Seaside] state of the aubergine

[Avi Bryant]

On Mon, 22 Apr 2002, Tim Rowledge wrote:

> So, all advice welcomed. I need to get this done _really_ quickly, I'm
> a long way behind on original estimates and things are getting
> desperate. I'll obviously need to know how to deal with permissions,
> logins, cookies, sessions, aaargh! Help Obi-wan WebPerson, you're my
> only hope!

Cookies. Heh!  Sessions.  Heh!  A Jedi craves not these things.
Help you I can.  Yes, mmm.

So, here's my advice.  90% of the work in this app is going to be on the
actual model.  For now, forget about the web and all the nonsense
that goes with it.  Trust that Seaside will handle this effortlessly for
you when the time comes.  Instead, build the logic: how are questions
represented?  How are they structured into tests?  How do you model a
particular writing of a test, and where do you record the answers?  How is
this data persisted?  Who can access/read/write which parts of it?  Take
this as far as you can and still be able to test it with SUnit instead of
with a live interface.  At that point, we should be able to guide you very
easily through the triviality of performing these same operations over the
web.

Now, that's not to say you shouldn't play around with the web stuff in the
meantime.  But there is a (usually justified) fear that the web will
impose its own bizarre structures on the entire application, and that
writing a web app is thus a completely different thing from writing any
other code, which Seaside makes a concerted effort to prove false ("No! No
different!  Only different in your mind.  You must unlearn what you have
learned").

Ok, no more Yoda quotes.  Go out and write the code, and come back when
you want help with the dinky little HTML bits.  And ask lots of questions
when you do.  I like answering questions, it saves me from having to write
real documentation.

Cheers,
Avi