<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif">On 19 January 2015 at 22:53, Neill Cox </span><span dir="ltr" style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"><<a href="mailto:neill.cox@ingenious.com.au" target="_blank">neill.cox@ingenious.com.au</a>></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif"> wrote:</span><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><p dir="ltr">I'm interested in working on a flask and angular solution as I have skills in python and javascript. Unfortunately I have next to no php or drupal skills.</p>
<p dir="ltr">If the concensus is that drupal is the way to go then I will quietly bow out and wish you the best of luck :) I'm not being precious about this, I just don't think I am the right person to work on a drupal replacement.</p>
<p dir="ltr"></p></blockquote><div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Flask rulez, php drools ;)</div><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class=""><div class="h5"><div class="gmail_quote"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace;display:inline"></div>On 19/01/2015 8:36 PM, "James Purser" <<a href="mailto:jamesrpurser@gmail.com" target="_blank">jamesrpurser@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><p dir="ltr">If we're going to stick with drupal then I think the best option is to use a drupal based membership management system, if nothing else, it reduces the "walk in front of a bus" problem.</p>
<p dir="ltr">As I recall from previous investigations the only thing that civicrm lacked was the ability to hold elections.</p></blockquote></div></div></div></blockquote></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">"(1) Do everything in drupal, (2) keep people skilled in drupal around, (3) ..., (4) (non-)profit" is a pretty reasonable approach. I had a quick look at civicrm on the web, but didn't really understand what it actually did; and it's not packaged in debian afaics, so my presumption is it's fairly heavyweight and complicated (which you might translate as full-featured and well-established).</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">An alternative approach LA could take for its systems is one more along the lines of shell commands -- ie, an array of small, well defined, single-purpose apps that interact only in very simple ways. That would have the advantage that any one piece is fairly easy to swap out and replace (because it's small and single purpose) and that in turn means it doesn't matter so much if it's in a language that falls out of fashion.<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">If you took the latter approach, maybe you could run the technology selection as a competition. Eg:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 1. we want a membership database</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 2. it should allow:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - new members</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - dealing with duplicate members</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - checking members are still interested</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - paid memberships</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - importing data from existing db (or reusing db directly)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - using member info for other tasks (elections, email aliases, ...)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 3. prototypes/proofs of concept accepted during the next six months</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - probably with checkpoints so folks can see how the competition is doing</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 4. best entrant selected based on some combination of:</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - feature completeness as per (2)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - simple, usable, documented API (to hook into other systems)<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - simple, understandable codebase (to improve later)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - simple, maintainable packaging (keep admins happy)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - membership vote on aesthetics (web ui, etc)<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">and</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 1. we want an updated election system</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 2. it should support</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - displaying results of elections from the previous system</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - running the council election (4x 1-winner, 1x 3-winner)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - running elections for LUGs affiliated with LA</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> (ie, not all LA members entitled to vote)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - a nomination process</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - the ability to decline a nomination</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - running membership polls</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - auditing the results</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> - authenticating against the membership database</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 3. (as above)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"> 4. (as above)</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">LA could encourage people to enter the competition by (a) offering a prize (memberdb was originally funded by a grant eg), (b) offering useful reviews of all submissions that can then be used as marketing material by entrants.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Keeping a focus on "small, interoperable components" means that you could just do the same process when wanting a new feature -- and accepting that sometimes entries might just be modifications of the existing system, sometimes might be an additional component, and sometimes might replace existing components.</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">(I think that process is flexible enough that civicrm could win on its merits, )</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">(I would love to see an occassional competition like the above to see if Xero can be replaced by a free software solution)</div></div><br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">Cheers,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:monospace">aj</div><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">Anthony Towns <<a href="mailto:aj@erisian.com.au">aj@erisian.com.au</a>></div>
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