The plans for the Grading System
- Carl Hibbard
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
What software do the local graders use now?
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Carl Hibbard
Carl Hibbard
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
Actually, I believe that is exactly what two LMS developers have indicated in the above discussion.Paolo Casaschi wrote: How likely are they to reply: "no thanks, you do not need to pay me for the whole LMS software, please define APIs towards the grading server and I'll adapt my system to work with those and anyone else should be allowed to as well."
- Paolo Casaschi
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
There's a difference between discussing hypothetically about the best solution to a given problem and replying to a specific tender offering you money for a software you by en large have already developed.Michael Flatt wrote:Actually, I believe that is exactly what two LMS developers have indicated in the above discussion.Paolo Casaschi wrote: How likely are they to reply: "no thanks, you do not need to pay me for the whole LMS software, please define APIs towards the grading server and I'll adapt my system to work with those and anyone else should be allowed to as well."
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
More fool the ECF in offering to pay for something they don't have to.Paolo Casaschi wrote:There's a difference between discussing hypothetically about the best solution to a given problem and replying to a specific tender offering you money for a software you by en large have already developed.Michael Flatt wrote:Actually, I believe that is exactly what two LMS developers have indicated in the above discussion.Paolo Casaschi wrote: How likely are they to reply: "no thanks, you do not need to pay me for the whole LMS software, please define APIs towards the grading server and I'll adapt my system to work with those and anyone else should be allowed to as well."
Both LMS developers say they independently advised the ECF over the last 4 years on the benefit of developing APIs but that advice fell on 'deaf ears'.
As they say on Dragon's Den, "I'm out!"
Last edited by Michael Flatt on Sun Feb 14, 2016 12:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
Council can nix that, and it sounds as though they may need some convincing not to do so.Michael Flatt wrote: More fool the ECF in offering to pay for something they don't have to.
Let's hope that Mike and Alex, who obviously could not contribute this this discussion irrespective of politcal considerations, are following and taking note.
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
Some of them use an old Windows program called League where you define player lists, teams and fixtures and then enter the match results to generate an ECF grading file. Some manually enter the XL spreadsheet format. Some use their own spreadsheets / macros. Some use their own software. In my case, my own software eventually became an LMS.Carl Hibbard wrote:What software do the local graders use now?
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
I'm not going to get drawn into this too much, but the current ECF central grading system was introduced for the 2002/3 season, and is written in Microsoft Visual Basic v6 and uses a Microsoft Access database. As I am unable to install the development environment on anything later than Windows Vista, I have rewritten this in Visual Basic under Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 and at the same time migrating the database to MySQL. As has already been said, once this has been done, we can then look at adding some APIs. Monthly lists are only going to work if you have monthly submission of results, and monthly submission of results using the current methods of graders sending files to the ECF who then manually process each one, just isn't going to work very well.
Former ECF Grading System Programmer
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
This is new and important information because it affects all current systems/local graders.Howard Grist wrote:Monthly lists are only going to work if you have monthly submission of results, and monthly submission of results using the current methods of graders sending files to the ECF who then manually process each one, just isn't going to work very well.
I'm guessing the easiest way to automate the process will be to have the local graders/LMS systems deposit grading submission files in a place (on an FTP server) where they can be picked up and processed by the central grading system. But the files could also be sent to a mailbox from where they would be automatically extracted and you could have an API for submission of grading files... The results of the central grading system's processing would be sent back to the local grader whose email address is recorded in the grading submission file.
I'm confused by all the talk of an API because it suggests to me something more elaborate than I think is needed.
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
A couple of suggestions:Howard Grist wrote:As I am unable to install the development environment on anything later than Windows Vista, I have rewritten this in Visual Basic under Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 and at the same time migrating the database to MySQL.
A year or two back I wanted to migrate some old VB6 code to .Net and used something called Visual Basic Upgrade Companion from mobilize.net. I got the free trial version which handled my relatively small projects for free. Of course if you're being paid T&M forget I said that and do it the hard way.
Unless you think the database is going to blow the 10 GB limit of SQL Server Express edition I would strongly recommend you use that. It is free and the management tools are free. Plus migration from Access (or MySQL for that matter) will be trivial.
The Access bit certainly helps explain the performance issues that certain members have reported as being a regular feature.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
I agree that the Wikipedia link given earlier gives that impression. In real life it is much simpler.Angus French wrote:I'm confused by all the talk of an API because it suggests to me something more elaborate than I think is needed.
An API merely tells you what you have to do to use somebody else's software. In this case, as several people have already suggested, this would specify the format of fields in an XML file which would be HTTP POSTED to the server. That again sounds more complicated than it is.
An XML file is just a file of data which uses XML tags to pass the data. So, something like this:
<ECFGradingUpdates>
<CompetitionCode>xyz</CompetitionCode>
<Games>
<Game>
<Player1ECFCode>abcde1</Player1ECFCode>
<Player2ECFCode>abcde2</Player2ECFCode>
<Player1Result>0.5</Player1Result>
<Player2Result>0.5</Player2Result>
</Game>
<Game>
<Player1ECFCode>abcde3</Player1ECFCode>
<Player2ECFCode>abcde4</Player2ECFCode>
<Player1Result>0</Player1Result>
<Player2Result>1</Player2Result>
</Game>
</Games>
<ECFGradingUpdates>
Would pass the results of two games from one competition.
An HTTP POST takes about half a dozen lines of code.
The XML would be generated and sent automatically by the LMS running on the congress organizer, league controller, club secretary's computer when the "Send to ECF" button was pressed.
Last edited by Brian Towers on Sun Feb 14, 2016 4:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.
- Carl Hibbard
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
No Angus just no, it's very manual unsecured and well horrible.Angus French wrote:This is new and important information because it affects all current systems/local graders.Howard Grist wrote:Monthly lists are only going to work if you have monthly submission of results, and monthly submission of results using the current methods of graders sending files to the ECF who then manually process each one, just isn't going to work very well.
I'm guessing the easiest way to automate the process will be to have the local graders/LMS systems deposit grading submission files in a place (on an FTP server) where they can be picked up and processed by the central grading system. But the files could also be sent to a mailbox from where they would be automatically extracted and you could have an API for submission of grading files... The results of the central grading system's processing would be sent back to the local grader whose email address is recorded in the grading submission file.
I'm confused by all the talk of an API because it suggests to me something more elaborate than I think is needed.
Cheers
Carl Hibbard
Carl Hibbard
- Carl Hibbard
- Posts: 6028
- Joined: Fri Dec 08, 2006 8:05 pm
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
Again no Brian you are confusing grading database with grading site.Brian Towers wrote:A couple of suggestions:Howard Grist wrote:As I am unable to install the development environment on anything later than Windows Vista, I have rewritten this in Visual Basic under Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 and at the same time migrating the database to MySQL.
A year or two back I wanted to migrate some old VB6 code to .Net and used something called Visual Basic Upgrade Companion from mobilize.net. I got the free trial version which handled my relatively small projects for free. Of course if you're being paid T&M forget I said that and do it the hard way.
Unless you think the database is going to blow the 10 GB limit of SQL Server Express edition I would strongly recommend you use that. It is free and the management tools are free. Plus migration from Access (or MySQL for that matter) will be trivial.
The Access bit certainly helps explain the performance issues that certain members have reported as being a regular feature.
Cheers
Carl Hibbard
Carl Hibbard
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
Now I'm definitely confused about who is confusedCarl Hibbard wrote:Again no Brian you are confusing grading database with grading site.
Howard Grist wrote:I'm not going to get drawn into this too much, but the current ECF central grading system was introduced for the 2002/3 season, and is written in Microsoft Visual Basic v6 and uses a Microsoft Access database.
...
at the same time migrating the database to MySQL
Ah, but I was so much older then. I'm younger than that now.
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
... which looks not dissimilar to how a grading submission file currently looks: the same data content; the same essential structure; just different formatting/syntax. My point was that I don't really think it's necessary (at this stage at least) to change the format of the submission and certainly not necessary (if this is what was envisaged) to allow different types of submission (a subset of an event's results say, rather than a full set of results).Brian Towers wrote:I agree that the Wikipedia link given earlier gives that impression. In real life it is much simpler.Angus French wrote:Howard Grist wrote:I'm confused by all the talk of an API because it suggests to me something more elaborate than I think is needed.
An API merely tells you what you have to do to use somebody else's software. In this case, as several people have already suggested, this would specify the format of fields in an XML file which would be HTTP POSTED to the server. That again sounds more complicated than it is.
An XML file is just a file of data which uses XML tags to pass the data. So, something like this:
<ECFGradingUpdates>
<CompetitionCode>xyz</CompetitionCode>
<Games>
<Game>
<Player1ECFCode>abcde1</Player1ECFCode>
<Player2ECFCode>abcde2</Player2ECFCode>
<Player1Result>0.5</Player1Result>
<Player2Result>0.5</Player2Result>
</Game>
<Game>
<Player1ECFCode>abcde3</Player1ECFCode>
<Player2ECFCode>abcde4</Player2ECFCode>
<Player1Result>0</Player1Result>
<Player2Result>1</Player2Result>
</Game>
</Games>
<ECFGradingUpdates>
Would pass the results of two games from one competition.
An HTTP POST takes about half a dozen lines of code.
- Carl Hibbard
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Re: The plans for the Grading System
Migrating.Brian Towers wrote:Now I'm definitely confused about who is confusedCarl Hibbard wrote:Again no Brian you are confusing grading database with grading site.Howard Grist wrote:I'm not going to get drawn into this too much, but the current ECF central grading system was introduced for the 2002/3 season, and is written in Microsoft Visual Basic v6 and uses a Microsoft Access database.
...
at the same time migrating the database to MySQL
The online database uses an exported copy of Access modified into MySQL.
Cheers
Carl Hibbard
Carl Hibbard