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

Hello David et. al.,

On Wednesday 07 April 2004 11:00 pm, David Mertz wrote:
> 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.

Thanks for the works of support.

> 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.

Yeah, I caught that. Fixed for future releases. I guess I'm just embittered by
Microsoft's use of the date on everything.

> 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.

I see what you mean. I don't know why I used an explicit identity test here...
now both functions receive a more descriptive and logical argument for the
button's state, "isOn", to test for, and will test by simply "if isOn:". This
still won't address the issue of backwards compatibility: for example, the
use of the datetime module, but I'm working on creating a binary package that
contains a self-hosting Python package (like Zope does) with PyQt/SIP built
straight into the interpreter (have you ever done this with C/C++ code
David?), all Python module dependencies (mainly evm2003 and gnosis), and
shipping it with a static Qt3 .so. We could then use distutils to install and
setup the environment properly. If this can be hammered into a good solution,
then we should have a kick-ass way of packaging and shipping everything. I
could certainly use help on that end.

> > 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.

Alright, with Alan and David's blessing, I've reverted back to the old naming
system. As mentioned before, I'll be working to update and round out the BRP
specs to include this.

> 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.

Funny thing is, the way I read the spec, it's the other way around.
votingmachinedata/ is the directory the EBIs are transferred *to*. How they
get stored on the CD isn't specific. For both source and target locations,
I'll add more detail to the spec.

> 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.

Thanks! I knew I forgot to mention something in my long-winded email, but
yeah, I removed the PS files from the EBIs I sent out due to their huge size.
We should make the EBI archive available for testing somewhere...

Peace!

Eron

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