[Soc-coordination] Final report of the Interactive web interface for the BTS

[Margarita Manterola]

Hi! Sorry for the delay on making this report.  I've been overwhelmed
with stuff (as usual).

I worked for the past months on a web-app called Amancay, intended to
be an interactive web interface for the BTS. The code is hosted in
alioth at http://svn.debian.org/wsvn/bts-webui

The server-side is coded in Python, using the Django framework.  The
client-side is coded in JavaScript, using MochiKit as a compatibility
kit.  The interaction with the BTS is done through the new SOAP
interface.

The app reached a "beta" state, where some of the bug actions (add a
comment, change severity, close, etc) are implemented, but some are
still in the TODO.  It's not currently in a state that it can go "in
production", but there are not so many things missing.  I intend to
keep working on it for the next months, until it reaches a usable
state.

The main disadvantage of this app is the delay caused by the SOAP
interface.  This delay is a bit "hidden" with the AJAX stuff, but is
still visible.  However, the advantage of being able to deal with the
bugs directly, instead of having to open a mail-agent, or a console,
pays for the latency.  When the app is ready, I'll ask for it to be
hosted in a debian.net machine, so that it's use can be widespread.

With this app I learned that doing a web-app implies not only
knowledge in the server-side language, but also in javascript and in
css.  I had the first two, but my css knowledge was limited, so I had
to learn a lot of css along the way, and I lost a lot of time with
that.

The other problem I ran into is that the SOAP interface wasn't as
ready as I thought at first.  But I've worked with Don, asking him to
add new features, and to fix some of the old stuff, so that now there
are more functions available, and the old ones can be used with more
options. Also, there's a "stable" and a "testing" SOAP server now, and
even if the stable one still breaks now and then, it doesn't break
nearly as often :).

All in all, even if the app is not yet finished, it's the foundation
of something that I think will be useful for the whole project, I'll
keep working on it, and maybe recruiting some extra help for it, so
that it gets to a better state.

-- 
Love,
Marga