Protocol of (most of) the questions from team to customer
2007-01-25, 9:00 to 2007-01-26, 15:00

Thursday, 2007-01-25:
=====================

(the first one or two would-be-entries may be missing)

10:00 Zend
  Q: How do you make sure we do not cheat by asking outsiders for help?
  A: We hardly can. Asking someone "what was the name of that library for X?"
    is acceptable.

10:30 Oxid
  Q: Is internationalization required? (UTF would quadruple out DB size!)
  A: No. You may assume the application will always be english-only.
    But having I18N would be a plus in the evaluation.

11:30 plusW
  Q: What with negative answers to RCDs. Shouldn't they be shown?
    Can we introduce another state for this purpose? Would this not interfere
    with the semantics of the web service.
  A: 1. This is an extension to the requirements, but it is obviously good.
        Therefore, it is a plus if you do it.

11:35 Optaros
  Q: must it be possible to modify the TTT questions dynamically?
  A: No. (Putting it into source code would be acceptable. Loading it at
     startup is perfectly fine)

11:38 Accenture
  Q: must it be possible to modify the TTT questions dynamically?
  A. No. (Putting it into source code would be acceptable. Having it as an XML
    file is also OK.)

11:48 Globalpark
  Q: Spec says for TTT evaluation "if the numbers are the same, always prefer
    I over E" and then continues "we may have E+0 but never I+0". What is
    right?
  A: prefer I over E

12:04 abaXX
  Q: search criterion: Show only members whom I have not yet sent an RCD.
    Not ever or not currently pending?
  A: Not ever. Once I have they are no longer "new" for me and that is what
    the function is for.

12:16 abaXX
  Q: Can we type in the TTT questions once and for all, or...?
  A: It is OK to make them fix.

12:17 abaXX
  Q: RCD states?
  A: Positive answer is the same as send

12:25 abaXX
  Q: like 11:48
  A: like 11:48

12:33 Zend
  Q: (pointing to the Enneagram type-relationsips picture):
    How does one determine the Enneagram type?
  A: See the note on the Enneagram registration requirement containing a
    link to 9types.com where you find a test. But that test is not part of
    our requirements

Survey at about 12:30: 
  When, roughly, do you expect to put your first prototype online?
  team;answer;reality
  1;16:00;
  2;16:00;
  3;no earlier than 20:00;
  4;17:00;
  5;probably never but not before Friday morning;
  6;14:30;14:56
  7;18:00;
  8;18:00;
  9;18:00;

13:48 Oxid
  Q: The web service specifies to use only ONE string for the GPS
    coordinates, but there are two coordindates. What to do?
  A: Do it like Google Maps does: use comma as separator (Latitude,Longitude)

13:57 Oxid
  Q: Normalize the spellings of "country" values?
  A: Selection list on input dialog is nice, forced normalization for web
    service is not.

15:18 Optaros
  Q: Enneagram type is introduced here but does not appear to be used
     anywhere. Why?
  A: It can be used as an axis for the graphic.

15:38 Oxid
  Q: getMemberinfo(sessionId,username) why username again?
  A: It's the name of the member whose data I want to retrieve

15:40 Oxid
  Q: 200 concurrent users means what?
  A: You need to define that yourself. It is meant to mean realistic
    session behavior.

16:07 Oxid
  Q: The webservice spec says about submitMemberinfo that username must be
    nil. Does that mean it should not be possible to modify one's username?
  A: Yes.

16:23 Optaros
  Q: E vs. I preference in case of ties: It is always the first letter of
    each dimenion that is prefered, except here. Is this intentional?
    (see 11:48)
  A: Yes, and the subsequent example is wrong (he had not noticed that yet!)

16:34 Zend
  Q: Must the user answer all questions in a TTT?
  A: No. Ideally, s/he should be forced to answer at least seven questions
    per dimension. Forcing to answer all questions is acceptable but not
    nice. How about forcing to answer 37 questions overall? Then each
    dimension is guaranteed to have at least 7 (since there are 4x10
    questions)

16:43 Accenture
  Q: What is the meaning of the various choices of variables for the graphic?
  A: You have two axes but many more than two variables to visualize.
   You can select what is shown on each axis.
   (Q: Is there a default? A: Pick what you think is appropriate)

16:51 Oxid
  Q: What does the string result of the webservice takeTTT mean?
  A: Returns the test result

17:03 RevSys
  Q: The GPS coordinate format regexp does not look as if it was intended the
    way it is: It contains "[\.\d+]?" but the + does not seem to make much
    sense there.
  A: The idea is "optional decimal point and a number of digits".
    The brackets should be parentheses.

17:30 RevSys 
  (time is estimated, may be very wrong)
  Q: When cutting the search results into pages, should the contents of the
    graphic be paged as well?
  A: Makes sense if the pages are sufficiently long (like 100 items).

17:54 abaXX
  Q: What is the meaning of the webservice return value of takeTTT:
    test result or type?
  A: test result

17:58 Innoopract
  Q: Are the kinds of choices for search filters alternative?
  A: No, they are all connected with AND and any number of them can be
  combined in one search

18:08 Oxid
  Q: Do you have an example of a set of TTT answers and correct corresponding
    test result so we could check our calculation?
  A: No.

18:09 Oxid
  Q: like 11:48
  A: like 11:48

18:15 RevSys
  Q: One search criterion talks about "since last logout". Would you consider
    a session timeout a logout?
  A: Yes.

18:36 plusW
  Q: GPS coordinate regexp appears to contain two errors:
    first pair of brackets and backslash before second pair of brackets
  A: Yes, indeed

18:39 Optaros
  Q: Is it acceptable if we produce the graphic in SVG, so that a browser
    plugin is required before the user can actually see it?
  A: It would be much better if it could run in a standard browser
    configuration, but if you would drop the requirement otherwise it is
    better to go the SVG route

19:09 Zend
  Q: like 17:30 (search result paging and the graphic)
  A: like 17:30

19:16 Zend
  Q: like 16:43 (clarification of variable selection for graphic axes)
  A: like 16:43
 
20:17 Oxid
  Q: like 17:58
  A: like 17:58
  (remark then: That is a mighty big query with 20 conditions on a 1 million
  entry table. And 100 Million connections or more.)  

20:45 abaXX
  Q: Is there a fixed point or value scheme for MUST vs. SHOULD vs. MAY?
  A: No. You have to judge it yourself.

21:58 Zend
  Q: like 11:48
  A: like 11:48

22:08 abaXX
  Q: Does webservice getMemberlist need to be able to handle the case of
    retrieving the list of no_contact members?
  A: No.

22:09 Optaros
  Q: webservice login returns a single string. Does that need to have a name?
  A: The webservice needs to conform to the WSDL file you received on the CD.
   That prescribes exactly the format and components of all data going in to
   and coming out of each call.

22:31 Oxid
  Q: If I write into the blog, is this visible immediately or does it have to
    be released first
  A: The procedure is described in the spec: After "save" you must do "publish"

22:41 Oxid
  Q: One example TTT test result says S+5 here. Do you think this is possible
    if you have answered all 40 questions?
  A: No, that is possible only if you left out at least one of the S vs. N
    questions

23:16 Optaros
  Q: search criterion "only members with the following types <types>".
    Why is it plural?
  A: You can search for multiple types at once: I want everybody who has
    either type A or type B etc.

23:20 abaXX
  Q: webservice searchForMembers: How to hand over the names of the axis
    variables?
  A: As shown in reqs 72-83 (up to the first space)

23:28 Optaros
  Q: Enneagram type field values: What is the semantic difference between
    "unknown" and "none"?
  A: None for the purpose of the rest of the specification (i.e, the search)

23:44 Optaros
  Q: Enneagram type relationships: Are the directions of the arrows
    meaningful?
  A: They are in the Enneagram theory, but not for our purposes.
    Connection or no connection is all that is of interest for us.

Friday
=======

00:10 Zend
  Q: GPS coordinate format regexp: I have run this through regexp tutor
    and tried it to match against various things but it did not work
  A: Yes, it contains two mistakes: Brackets rather than parens (twice) and
    for the second set of parens the backslash must be inside, not before.

00:25 Zend
  Q: Is it mandatory that the graphic appears immediately with the search
    results or would it be OK if one has to call it separately?
    That would save having to decide on default variables for the axes.
  A: That is left to you. If you know a good reason why one or the other
    might be preferable, you can do it that way.

08:08 Optaros
  Q: We probably won't make it with SOAP. How important is it?
    We could probably build a replacement with XML-RPC. Should we?
  A: It is relevant for the load test only. Weigh it against other things.
    XML-RPC is probably not worth the effort.

08:40 plusW
  Q: "The portal rejects the answers because less than five answers have been
    received for at least one of the four dimensions". Means what?
    My English is insufficient.
  A: (explained it to him)

08:57 plusW
  Q: Does "the status page shows the information entered upon registration"
    mean it also displays the password? Even for other users?
  A: No, of course not. Normal common sense applies.

Note from Optaros 9:07: Typo in ttt-questions.txt "exceptionp"

09:11 abaXX
  Q: How to make a blog entry public? It stays in "drafts" for me.
  A: After "save" use "publish" in the top green bar on the rightmost menu.

Survey at 9:45 to 10:08: 
  What fraction of the functional requirements do you expect to implement
  until the end of the contest (separately for MUST, SHOULD, MAY)
  (Two rounds through all teams: First an announcement, then the actual query)
  1;70;80;65
  2;80;50;33
  3;100;70;50
  4;50;10;10
  5;100;100;75
  6;80;80;50
  7;100;20;5
  8;70;20;10
  9;20;10;10

09:47 abaXX
  Q: What distance is to be used if GPS coordinates are missing?
  A: Such a member can never be found in search and will not be shown in the
    graphic on the member list page of existing members

11:09 abaXX
  Q: What does "nice interaction style for specifying a set of types" mean?
  A: Means the subset of TTT types to search for.

11:40 Oxid
  Q: The formulae given for the graphics axis variables NT and NF are
    identical. Is that a mistake?
  A: Yes. For NF it should say F-T, not T-F

14:33 Zend
  Q: Are gzip files acceptable, too?
  A: .tar.gz? Yes.

