[Imc-web] Re: Imc-web digest, Vol 1 #187 - 1 msg

[Clint Popetz]

On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 02:04:30PM -0600, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
> On Fri, 12 Dec 2003, Clint Popetz wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Dec 12, 2003 at 01:09:18PM -0600, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
> > > hi all,
> > >
> > > over the past month or so i've been slowing changing the front page,
> > > cleaning up redundancies, etc.  the php code changes are all
> > > documented/commented.
> >
> > That would have been a good thing to communicate, since I was in the
> > process of transitioning the site to the newest version of dada, which
> > primarily involves diffing/patching our local changes.
> >
> > So I assume you have a set of diffs, in patch format, to give me?
> 
> nope.  mainly i've been doing things just to learn php a bit better and
> for my own edification.  what's the timeline on the upgrade -- i can just
> make the changes again once the new version is up and running.

The newest dada is substantially different than what we are using, so
your diffs likely won't apply post-upgrade without a lot of work.  The
entire site is done with stylesheets in the new dada.  

Here's where I am on the upgrade.  Everytime I attempt it, I put about
10 hours of work in, only to hit some roadblock.  The upgrade scripts
take over 24 hours to run in order to make the database changes (mysql
is dumb about ALTER TABLE statements).  So I typically clone the site,
start the upgrade, hit a snafu related to trying to propogate our code
changes to the new version, then the database is too out-of-date (i.e.
the main site has articles that aren't in the clone) and I have to
repeat.  This is complicated by the fact that we are three versions
behind in the upgrade stream.  I've probably burned 40 hours over the
past several months attempting this process.

Here's what I would _love_ to do:

(a) Ignore our dada changes.  They are out of date, and mostly
cosmetic.

(b) Install the new dada, and point the main site at it, but _without_
all but the (say) 100 latest articles/features.  

(c) Move the backlog of articles to the new database over the
subsequent days after the bugs in the site are worked out.

(d) Hand over dada-ucimc ownership to Dan and you all.

This means that for a few days, articles older than the last 100
wouldn't be reachable.  I think that's not too much to swallow.  By
doing it this way, I can reasonably get the new site up in one 4 hour
session, which is about all my brain is good for in front of a
computer these days.

Thoughts?

			-Clint