[ucn] adding an observer (and somehow failing so far)

Hello,

As I mentioned yesterday, I have installed a demo of the new appendix  
C checker, with a unicorn-friendly output potion. Since I needed to  
install the new version of the unicorn software which Damien had sent  
me, I though I could also try and see whether I could add that  
observer to the unicorn framework.

First impression: that's still darn complicated. Admittedly, I am in  
the position, at the same time, of the developer of an observer and  
the maitainer of the framework, so that's twice the work.

What I did:

* created the module description/wadl files
http://qa-dev.w3.org/~ot/ucn_contracts/appc-checker.wadl
http://qa-dev.w3.org/~ot/ucn_contracts/appc-checker.rdf

* edited the tasklist files in
qa-dev:/home/ot/unicorn/resources/tasklist/
added an appc task, refered to the appc-checker observer in a number  
of places, changed the name of the "validation" task to be  
"conformance", because I was adding an observer that's beyond  
validation and in the realm of conformance.

* recompiled the war and installed it.

Result? the task drop-down menu is empty, and I don't know why. I  
know I must have done something wrong, but I don't know what for  
sure, and the file mentioned in the README (info.log in qa:/usr/share/ 
tomcat5/webapps/unicorn/WEB-INF/logs/package) does not exist, and the  
other log files give me little info as to what is broken. No  
error.log, nothing useful in tasklist.log.


So, I guess I've failed to add an observer at this first attempt.  
This is good. :) Let's consider me as our basic stupid user for a  
second, find what was too difficult for me to do correctly, let's  
find ways to tell our stupid users what they dd wrong, and even  
better, how they can fix it.


That's our big challenge to make the tool actually good: make it usable.


I'll try again and see what I may have done wrong, but I have no more  
time today. Damien, if you're interested in looking into it,  /usr/ 
share/tomcat5/webapps/unicorn/ and /home/ot/unicorn/ are all yours  
for the day.

Cheers,
-- 
olivier

Received on Thursday, 17 August 2006 07:15:48 UTC