[OVC-demo-team] More on Eron's WONDERFUL fixes

I first want to thank Eron for the wonderful job in coming back to
this, and addressing most, if not all, of the outstanding issues. And
of course, for making the BRP software in the first place. Bugs
happen--usually at the worst time--but the bit of rancor and stress on
the list lately shouldn't detract from what a good fundamental job Eron
did.

First thing before any more detailed comments: wizard.py imports
several things from evm.*, rather than from evm2003.*. I changed that
for my system. Consistent with the software to-date, as well as with
the naming in CVS, it seems like our package is called evm2003 (and
that's what my own installation calls it). Unless there is a general
sentiment to change this, we should keep that name, IMO.

Per Karl's observation, lines 570 and 667, both of which read 'if state
is True:' should really be changed to simply 'if state:'. I had
suggested that 'if state==True:' would work, but Karl's form quite
plainly looks better (and there is no reason not to do that that I can
see). I guess this change addresses the Python 2.2 issue... whatever
side one takes on version requirements, there's no reason to break
backwards compatibility for such a minor code difference.

> 2. The application now implements the BRP spec to the T. Scanned
> barcodes
> produce "b-" files, vote station files contain "v-", and verified
> files strip
> the prefix entirely. The directories "scanned/", "stored/", and
> "verified/"
> have been renamed to "barcodedata/", "votingmachinedata/", and
> "results/",
> respectively. I kind of liked the old naming, but if you want the spec,
> you've got the spec.

I like the old scanned/stored/verified naming better also.

Incidentally, we're still not quite to the Wiki spec inasmuch as the
XML files go to the root of the CD, not to
/dev/cdrom/votingmachinedata. I think the way it's implemented is
BETTER than the spec, but either way, they don't quite match.

Oh, one more. It seems like it would be convenient for testers (or
just reporters) to have a set of test ballots as PS files, not simply
as XML EBI files. This way you can print out the stack of ballots that
*should* have been printed by the imaginary vs-01, vs-02, and vs-03
machines. I've uploaded an archive that contains both Eron's XML
files, and corresponding PS files:

   http://gnosis.cx/secret/test-ballots.zip

I can but these on Sourceforge too (probably in src/evm2003/test/vs-01/
and friends) if anyone thinks I should.

Yours, David...

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Received on Sat Nov 22 03:47:10 2008