Hiking Database

[zourtney]

Turns out that Google Drawings works pretty well for mockups. Well enough for my low standards, anyway. I was playing around and made a few generic templates...really I was just drawing fake devices to get a hang of the drawing tools. I'll share the folder, then we can start doing our screens and UML in there.

[zourtney]

Ya'll feel free to fill out the super-rough spec sheet I started. It's nothing formal; just a place to keep ideas and features in check.

[Nick]

What were people thinking for the backend? node.js? PHP? Python? Ruby? C++? Of them all I think node.js and PHP offer the easiest solution. C++ would just involve reinventing a wheel or two, though I am sure there are some libraries somewhere to make it all quicker. Python probably wouldn't be too hard.

[zourtney]

Initially, I like the idea of node.js or Python. Because I (wrongly?) perceive them as lightweight and well structured.

The little Python server I did earlier this year was slick. You'll probably need Apache mod_wsgi installed, which isn't hard, but limits our options if we ever wanted it to be remote-hosted (...probably not an issue). There are dozens of frameworks for bare-bones web servers.

I want to learn node.js. With my modernish JavaScript experience, I think it'd be easy to pick up.

Ruby sounds fun, but daunting to learn. PHP is feeling "old school". And C++ sounds masochistic for this purpose.

Maybe I'll play with a few and see what I like!

[Nick]

I personally found node.js to be easy-peasey for what little I did in it.

[zourtney]

Cool, I found a nodejs REST server API in about 20 seconds. Looks promising. And concise.

How do you want to persist data? I just looked at some "no sql" database stuff which kinda blows my mind. I'm not sure if it's the right way to go or not, but we ought to decide what data we are going to store first, anyway.

[zourtney]

And in that vein...here's a few screen ideas. Nothing fancy, just trying to visualize a UI and think about what data we want to see on screen. Feel free to edit, criticize, add your own, etc.

PS, I tried to make it look generic, but sorry if it came out too iOS.