[Teammetrics-discuss] [GSOC-2012] Interested in improving Debian Team Activity Metrics

[Sukhbir Singh]

Hi,

> I am Vipin and i am interested in this project as GSOC work this summer. I
> [...]
> broader audience which the web interface will be able to provide.

Thank you for your interest in the Team Metrics project. And yes, our
intention is that with the web interface, the Debian community can
make use of the data we have gathered.

> I know the organization list was out some time back but we had exams at
> university which just got over, hence the delay but I have gone through the
> discussion on the mailing list and these is what i understand of the
> project, do correct me if i am wrong or if i have missed something.

That's no problem, we will be evaluating all applications together.

> 1) Data for the metrics is available on a PostgreSQL database which needs to
> be presented on the web interface.
> 2) An API needs to be designed for data access.
> 3) Add additional metrics/improve code/ verify if the data is correct.
> 4) Django/Pylons framework is preferred and ORM will be an overkill for the
> relatively simple database structure.
> 5) Avoid javascript wherever possible to keep the design simple.
> 6) Data is updated in the database every month using a cron job.

All correct.

> 1) The repo has code that generates plots for different stats and i have
> read some one suggesting using matplotlib to generate graphs. Are these
> plots rendered on the server side and are we expected to use these when
> designing the web interface?

TBH, I am not sure how we want to approach the graphs issue. We
already have a R script that generates these graphs (the ones you saw
on blends.debian.net above), so either we just fetch them and show
them *or* we generate 'interactive' graphs that are more suited to be
rendered in a browser (but then, what's wrong with a simple PNG!). I
suggest that you don't worry much about this for now, so feel free to
skip over this in your application.

> 2) Why avoid javascript since there are many good (cross-browser compatible)
> libraries for rendering graphs in the browser? We can consume our own API
> (say it provides JSON data) and render the graphs in the browser instead of
> generating graphs at the server side.

It's mostly got to do with the way Debian websites are as they should
be kept simple [0] and being part of the Debian ecosystem, it's
natural for us to follow this approach. I have said this before also I
guess, we are not anti-JavaScript, but if you can do without it,
please do so :)

[0] - http://wiki.debian.org/DebianWebsiteDiscussion#Step_1:_identify_needs


-- 
Sukhbir