PostMortemOverview

Welcome to the end of the beginning. Here we will record our current thoughts about what's going on, and where we need to go for the future. Please add issues (in the summary table), and join in on discussions/topics that get you worked into a lather.

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Selection

Summary: Need flexible support for selection operations.

Links: Selection

This is one of the things that we have support well. Most of the things that people react to in demos are linked view selections.

--Hollywood 17:30, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

Plotting

Summary: Flexible support for parallel graph operations, as well as highly interactive client-side graphing.

Links: Plotting Parallel Data (PGraph)

Ken's PGraph work will address parallel concerns, but there is a huge component of client-side graphing in ParaQ. How do we manage mulitple client-side graphs? How does the user understand what's being graphed? How is that controlled? In our recent demos, one use case that came up was that of having client-side graphs appear on a tiled display. Not a high priority, but something to think about in the overall architecture. We seem to be spending a lot less time on the tile display requirements these days. --Hollywood 17:30, 25 Jan 2006 (EST)

Testing

Summary Test or die.

LinksTesting Requirements, Testing Design, Notes on ParaQ Testing, Testing Prototype, Early Testing Prototype, Hello World Testing

We're on our way with the dashboard, the testing framework, and the mentality of the group. Now, we have to commit to writing test plans, test cases, etc. Again, a balancing act with development.

--Hollywood 17:30, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

Connection

Summary: Flexible support for connection to servers; wide range of users and use cases.

Links: Selection

Tim, Lisa, John and I were talking about this at lunch today, and if we can make this aspect of using ParaQ simple (OK, as simple as possible ...), we're going to win big. This will be a lot of work, for something that the user blows by every time he/she uses ParaQ. I can also be a big user sticking point, if we ignore it.

--Hollywood 17:30, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)

Save/Restore

Summary: We can save a lot of information, but what operations (Save, Restore, etc.) make sense to the user?

Links:

Installation Management

Summary: Several platforms need installation scripts/packages soon, so that we can manage user testing, demos, etc.

Links:

Development Process

Summary: What is our development model for the coming releases?

Links:

We touched on this briefly in a recent meeting, but we'll need to formalize it in the next few weeks. I'm a big, big fan of frequent 'working releases', especially given that we want to exercise a lot of capability in the coming months. Testing (including user testing) will have to be an integral part of our development process, as UI design and useability issues are a major motivator of the entire ParaQ project.

--Hollywood 17:30, 22 Jan 2006 (EST)