We need to get a few wrinkles sorted out on the notes over
the next couple days and it's going to require some coordination
between Paul and Mikol and possibly Mikiya (who is out of town
until Tuesday).
I haven't had an update from Paul today, but it looks like something
has changed in the past 8 hours or so and now student notes are
not available on the live class pages. As best as I can tell, the
lecturer notes are not pointed to correctly. I tried to fix this
problem myself, but I failed. Things work OK on the demo page, but
that functionality will cease as soon as the mirroring job runs
tonight.
So we are left with non-functioning notes. I think it is a simple
problem to fix (I think Paul wrote the lecturer's notes to a directory
called "abowd" instead of "lecturer"), or perhaps it's more subtle (our
Web server running Apache might handle symbolic links differently than we
are assuming) but whatever the cause there are two lessons here:
***) When developing enhancements to the class notes, DO NOT do the
initial development on the live class notes. That is what the demo
directories are for. We'll talk a little about the configuration
management problem at tomorrow's meeting.
***) When changes to the overall system are made, we need to run
a suite of tests to ensure that the functionality is as expected BEFORE
we unleash the system on the students. We are really going to be
losing credibility with the students quickly if the system is perceived
as unreliable. All the more reason to test out on the demo pages.
Paul, please get in touch with me at your earliest convenience
tomorrow and we'll try to sort this confusion out. Ami, we might
need to consult with you to make sure we understand how the Web server
is working.
I'll see all of you at 5pm tomorrow night, if not sooner.
Gregory
--------
Gregory D. Abowd, Assistant Professor Gregory.Abowd@cc.gatech.edu
College of Computing Phone: 404-894-7512
Georgia Institute of Technology FAX: 404-894-9442
Atlanta, GA 30332-0280
USA
URL http://www.cc.gatech.edu/fac/Gregory.Abowd