Procrast-a-project
In case you haven’t heard, most of the contributors/members here at procrastinators.org spend a good chunk of time chatting on irc. Just call it our little support group.
Not all of us are online all the time, so we miss out on some of the webpages that others share. Matt suggested logging them and displaying the list on procrastinators.org. Thanks to the database driven nature of the site, a database table was the obvious target. And hence a project was born.
Assuming the page layout hasn’t changed, there should be a box to the right, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Taking the reins as project manager, Greg delegated writing the plugin for Jackbot to Ardvaark, but he’s busy working for the Library of Congress, so very little progress was made. Let the procrastination begin! I got interested in the project, asked about it and that was considered “showing some interest”, so Ard delegated it to me. I spent a couple of nights reading the docs to Jackbot, toying with some example plugins, searching the web for Javascript code and bugging Ard for ideas. Eventually I hammered out some basic, but working, code. All of this when I probably should have been working or watching TV.
After a few more days of procrastination because of work and a holiday, or something, Greg started on the display end of things. A few adjustments to the jackbot plugin and a couple days later, tada, you have the box on the right titled “What are we browsing today?”. Future plans include an archive page and possibly an RSS feed. But, why do today what you can put off until tommorrow?
This little project was so successful, maybe we should write a book about the Procrastination Method of Project Management, it would surely be more efficient than moving cheese or throwing fish.
I like how it’s called “Project Management” when you get someone else to do your work for you =P
By the way, the link bar is only on the home page, so if you’re looking at this article on its own subpage, then you won’t see it. But that’s a feature, I swear!
Awesome! Way to go and get something done! So I have to ask, was writing a JackBot script as hard as you thought?
Re: Project Management
Where I work, you generally aren’t a manager if you actually do work.
Re: JackBot scripting
With the wonderful online function reference and some helpful tips from you and google, it wasn’t really that hard. I still can’t stand Java, but that’s just a personal preference.
Update: The archive page is done (see menu at left or “More” link below the sidebar).
Brian: In my experience the jack scripts aren’t too hard but first you have to get your brain around the design of the whole system (the bot object, what the event model is about, when stuff is called, and what kind of environment you’re actually in). These items are what your documentation doesn’t try to address, and consequently they require the most head-scratching. YMMV tho.