Category: BigBlueButton

I had a lengthy discussion with Chad last Friday and again this Monday regarding using session variables versus using a class to store session data. Chad doesn’t like session variables so he suggested I make a class to store all session data. The upside is that we can now store different data types in the class – session variables are limited to string data. Having never worked with a system that’s supposed to support so many people simultaneously, I started wondering how efficient it was to store so much information in a single class for each user. We created methods that query the database and return data in lists. We don’t have methods that return each individual field in the database, but instead that return chunks of data relevant to what we need. For instance, the getUserInfo method will return fields containing the user’s first name, last name, email, settings, etc. However, I found that I needed specific fields from that method in other parts of the website. The solution was then to either create specific methods that return just the fields that I need, or to populate a UserSession class with all the data I may ever need upon user log in. I went with the latter solution. I don’t know if this is necessarily the most efficient route, so we’ll have to run metrics later on.

This week I started implementing the new pages that Ystallonne has been working on. I started with the authentication system/log in page because the code would largely stay the same. The main changes came from the way we now connect to the database. Instead of connecting directly from the authentication page, we use DB connection classes written by Bo that handle the opening and closing of connections. We had discussed in length the need for creating a robust connection pool that will allow many simultaneous connections so I’m hoping Bo’s classes are up to the task. I say this because I keep running into a problem where after a certain number of log in attempts, the database will stop responding to requests. I’m not sure if this error is in my code or if there’s an issue with the DB connection classes. I’ll talk to Bo next week.

This week was half spent at work and the other half in Cambridge attending a BlackBerry Jam Camp. At CDOT, we’ve fallen into a pattern that I think will continue for the next few weeks – Ystallonne will be working on designing the layout of the individual pages and I’ll be hooking the pages up so they interact with the database. We’ve had a lot of discussions centering around accessibility and how accessible our website will be. Supposedly next year every website of a government sanctioned institution will need to be accessible. Because we’re making a website for Seneca College this means that we have to make it accessible as well. What we don’t know, and will likely have to look into in the coming weeks, is what exactly has to be accessible and how accessible it needs to be. For now we’re going to try to make all of our components tabbable and some navigable using the arrow keys. I’ve started working on getting the log in page working again, but due to some changes in how we connect to the database, it’s proven to be trickier than expected. There’s also some functionality I need from the database that’s not yet available so I’ll have to talk to Bo about that next week.

 

On Tuesday BlackBerry drove Ystallone, Andrei (another CDOT employee) and myself up to Cambridge for the BlackBerry Jam Camp, an event focused on teaching students how to develop applications for BlackBerry 10 devices. It was a phenomenal experience and one that I wish other companies would endorse. They covered everything from installing and setting up the SDK to actually writing a basic app using either HTML5 or native code. If we write an app and have it approved and submitted to BlackBerry World by September, we even get a free phone! The event drew people from all over North America – a  military reserve student from New Hampshire, a student from Alberta, and other students from all over Ontario. There’s a larger overarching competition that promises to send the winner of the best app-sensation to Orlando for the massive BlackBerry Jam conference. I’ve made a team with Ystallonne and two other students I met during the camp and we’re really excited to start working on our idea. We want to create a system to link BlackBerry users with BlackBerry developers to create the apps that users want. Hopefully I’ll even be able to incorporate some gamification elements 😀