Ajaxian



SimpleTicket: Still Open Source (still great taste!)

I noticed a few comments from Ward and Vince regarding the status of SimpleTicket as an open source project.  To Ward’s question, “…does this mean that SimpleTicket is no longer open source?”  Absolutely not, we are committed to keeping SimpleTicket open source using the GPL.

To Vince’s answer, “…he took it back in house to develop.”  The hard part about building software is deciding what to build.  In the end we need SimpleTicket for our business and we must have certain features.  One day I looked at the demo version and it looked nothing like the software we had intended, instead it was circa 1999 radio buttons.  I proposed to the two most active non-Architel developers that they continue the project with their vision and we would continue a different project using our vision.  They decided they would rather complain than to continue their own version of the project.
To meet our deadlines (we had missed our May deadline working with the community) we hired coders to complete the second version of SimpleTicket.  Once it is released we would love to start building a community around the project.  Ward, we would love to have you on board.  But just as I said to the other developers, I don’t want you to waste your time on code that will never find its way into SimpleTicket.  By working together we can make sure that we all get what we want.  Go ahead and wait for the new code and if you like it and want to get involved please give me a call or send me an email.

July 6, 2006 | Trackback | [4] Comments

Tags: SimpleTicket , Rails , Architel , Ajax , Ajaxian , Biginjapan , simpleticket , rubyonrails , bij , podcast , podserve , alexleverington | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It



BarCampDallas Presentation

Kevin did a great job presenting SimpleTicket at BarCampDallas. Woot! The source code has been released, now the real work begins - with the community (that hopefully) will be formed around the tool.

What is SimpleTicket? Think simple, easy to use trouble ticket system freely distributed via the GPL license written using Ruby on Rails with Ajaxian goodness.

January 28, 2006 | Trackback | [3] Comments

Tags: SimpleTicket , Open Source , Trouble Ticket , Rails , Ajax , Ajaxian , Ruby on Rails , barcamp , barcampdallas | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It



SimpleTicket Status - Good News!

I just finished going through the workflow with Kevin and I am very excited to say it works.  There are a few tweaks required, but it works.  We will be able to test in production all week, demo on Saturday (BarCampDallas) and release that night.  There are going to be some missing parts:

  • Stats - this section is going to be important for Architel so expect it soon.
  • Search - I think everyone is going to need this section, we will be asking the community to complete it I suspect (or one of our Big in Japan developers).
  • Client/Engineer Edits - adding or deleting clients and engineers is a fairly manual process now, we will be creating a simple new client wizard and engineer addition list.

The tweaks?  First, there are a few auto-populate features that are necessary to make the software easy to use.  Next, we need to streamline the ‘take ticket’ workflow to remove a step (i.e. deliver you to the update screen immediately).  Finally, we need windows to close after an action is taken on them, right now the previews stay open after actions are completed.  Anyway, congrats to Kevin - bang up job before the ‘end of the day.’

January 24, 2006 | Trackback | 1 Comment

Tags: SimpleTicket , Open Source , Trouble Ticket , Bugs , News , Rails , Architel , IT Support , Ajax , Ajaxian , Ruby on Rails , barcamp , barcampdallas , beta , Biginjapan | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It



Release Expectations…

The SimpleTicket team met today and the goal is to release SimpleTicket again internally next week. If that goes well we will release the code on the 28th after our demo at BarCampDallas. Architel clients should start seeing the new icon on their desktops during the first week in February. We believe the delays have been helpful and we hope you will be happy with our work.

January 16, 2006 | Trackback | [2] Comments

Tags: SimpleTicket , Architel , Ajax , Ajaxian , Ruby on Rails , barcamp , barcampdallas | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It



Development Methodologies…

slow.gifLots of people develop in lots of different ways, and I’ve found none less varied than the methods used by those who develop in Rails. Most Rails developers write on their local machines, with local implementations of Ruby, Rails, Gems, MySQL/PGSQL/YourFlavorRDBMSHere, and WEBBrick. I was cajoled and poked and prodded into using this methodology lately, instead of my normal methods.

In fact, I was kvetching on a list recently about how much I enjoyed and hated using TextMate to develop in, and wished it had SFTP support so I could work like I normally do… Development instance up on my server, source on my server, editing tools local. Most of the people on the list reminded me that good developers wreck their own computers first, servers second (after releases and stuff).

So, I moved to the Mini that I use to code on (and for my everyday desktop). Wow. Talk about S-L-O-W. I mean, Wow. I was reminded of coding in Pascal in High School on my NEC V20 based PC. We are talking 1985 binary sort slow. Wow.

I persevered, pushing on, coding against my own PC. Update javascript, press F5 - dah-dum-dah-dum-dah-dah… check email… hmm hmm HMMM hmm hmm… test code.

I have moved back to coding with Dreamweaver against my server. Its not in production yet, and ligHTTPD is sooo much faster. Maybe I am too ‘Instant Gratification Generation’ ( give it to me now, give it to me now! ).

What do you code in, readers? How do you setup your development environment?

January 16, 2006 | Trackback | [14] Comments

Tags: SimpleTicket , Open Source , Rails , Architel , Ajax , Ajaxian , Ruby on Rails | Bookmark on del.icio.us | Digg It

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