[sf-lug] Having fun with BALE; CABAL meeting Saturday (today)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Daniel Gimpelevich (daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us):

> Wow, Ash Wednesday is both Feb. 18 and Feb. 25 this year! Who knew? 

Be damned if I know how the Feb. 18 one got there.

> I'd like to volunteer to give the page an update round....

Before you could do that, you would have to understand how the page
works.  I'm guessing you don't.

People who make these offers typically assume it's just a matter of
downloading an HTML file, editing it locally, and sending back a diff or
a new version.  Was that what you had in mind?  If not, how were you
proposing to proceed?

BALE has event templates.  The templates are tables in a MySQL database.

On the first of every month, a Python script runs that generates
individual recurring events as rows in an 'events' MySQL table based on
the template table.

Prior to February 1st, I was working first on non-recurring events that
I particularly like to have included in my calendar, extending those in
the events table out through the end of 2015.  As we got closer to
February 1st, I was _trying_ to find time to update the templates to
correct the many particulars in which they are out of date.

I have a busy life.  I ran out of time.  I probably should have
temporarily disabled the cron job that runs the Python script the first
of every month -- but I didn't get to that in time, and so the Python
script ran and populated the events table through May 2015 based on
the somewhat outdated templates.  (Dates through April are pulled from
the live displayed page by the PHP that generates the page, but a huge
amount of events are now present through May.)

So, now in addition to the original problem of needing to update the
templates, I need to also correct (or delete and regenerate) the 2015
events generated from the somewhat outdated templates.  So, a task that
was going to take a big chunk of time is now going to take a bigger
chunk of time.

Which brings me back to you.  You say you want to 'give the page an
update round'.  You're going to help by, what, complaining?  Because
what I'm seeing is zero help.

The MySQL schema, PHP, and Python routines that run BALE are available
to you and to anyone and everyone else under GNU General Public License 
v. 2.  I don't remember where I have the tarball, but if you say you
want it and intend to set it up, I'll either find it or construct a new
tarball for you.  Once you say you have that ready for live data, I will
be glad to also supply you with a MySQL dump of my events database.

Then, you can work out how to send me something I can use -- or not.
Whatever you want.

But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting, because I'm rather too used
to people who don't understand the issue at all thinking they are
helping when they bitch about something, and bringing nothing useful to
the table at all.

Your call.

Meanwhile, yes, I'll update the effing template rows, and then I'll fix
the effing events, and then I'll regenerate anything that needs to be
regenerated.

On my timetable, when I have time.  If you don't like that, get used to
it or die with it on your mind.

And no, your bitching did not help.