Category Archives: Computer Science

General Update

So, turns out that whole compilation/posting of our completed ticket wasn’t as ‘complete’ as we’d thought. That is to say, rather than compile everything and post it to GitHub, we ended up trying to compile all our individual code first….repeatedly. It took a bit of playing around with, but we figured out that it could all be compiled and pushed up through the GitHub GUI. For whatever reason, whenever we tried it on the Bash, it just wouldn’t work properly.

After finally getting it sent up, we still hadn’t heard back from the admins about whether we’d properly fulfilled the requirements, so we’re not sure where to go with all of this. As a group, we pretty much decided to focus on the book reports that would be due soon, and just wait for confirmation. As I’ve still not heard fromΒ Dhimitris (who originally claimed the ticket), all I’ve been doing is reading more from my book.

Frankly, I was right. Reading glorified textbooks isn’t that fun. I prefer sci-fi/fantasy to non-fiction πŸ˜›

From the blog Kyle's Works Β» CS@Worcester by kyleprimmer and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Taking Care of Backlog…

So, apparently, I’m really bad at keeping these sorts of things regular. So, let’s start off with two weeks ago, shall we?

Two weeks ago, we did a sort-of lab in class, one that involved downloading various applications and such before it could really get going; well, it involved all that for me, seeing as I was using vastly outdated software/programs. In order to get things working, I had to download the latest version of Eclipse available (Helios, I believe?), as well as a better version of Java in order to properly run everything. I tried to do this all in class, but for whatever reason my internet connection in the classroom seems especially bad. It was at the point that the estemated completion time was several hours, at the lowest. I think the highest I saw was about 10 hours.

Either way, after I got home, everything seemed to work out well enough. The downloads finished rather quickly, and I soon was running the proper software. Unfortunately,Β everything wasn’t perfect at this point, and thus I had to play around with the Eclipse settings for a bit. Now, while I really should have been typing this up as I did it, so I could remember everything I did, I was an idiot, and failed to do so. So, let’s see how much I can remember, and how much I can re-work through…

It still wasn’t letting me run files as JUnit Tests, so I had to go into the settings and preferences and such to find out why this thing still wasn’t working. Come to find, in spite of downloading the latest of Java and Eclipse, it was still trying to use an old system library, 1.6 I believe it was. I had to go in, forcibly re-direct which Build Path it was using, then I had to force it to run as JUnit Test (unfortunately, I can’t quite remember what I ended up having to do to get that to work properly, but it still didn’t want to run it).

After that fiasco was over and done with, our group finished up our ticket and got ready to compile it all together and send it. I’m not sure if we decided on a new ticket or anything, yet, but I suppose I’ll find out later today in class. In the meantime, I’ve been taking a look at that book I’m apparantly supposed to give a report on. Not gonna lie, I’m not looking foreward to reading what looks to amount to a specialized textbook. I generally shunt those off to be used as references, at best. And even then, the Internet’s generally faster for me. Well, here’s hoping this doesn’t turn out as painful as it’s starting to sound.

From the blog Kyle's Works Β» CS@Worcester by kyleprimmer and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

How Much Are We Responsible For..?

So, found more info on the project. Dhimitris found most of the sections where we need to add the comments, so that should work well. On the other hand, from what we can see, the last person to work on this project also went about building actual test classes for the project, so we’re not entirely sure whether or not to do the same.

There’s also some question about which sections still need to get done. Taking a look through the project, we found a few cases mentioning the need for ‘tests’, but didn’t specifically mention JUnit tests, so there’s some question of whether or not those were just lazy typo’s, or if they’re separate things we are not responsible for.

Most likely, we’ll first focus on the TODO requests in HibernateFormDAO.java, and HibernatePatientDAO.java to add the @should comments. It seems that they have some Plug-in available that uses such comments to generate test classes, so the comments are first priority. Maybe afterwards, we might be making those test classes themselves, after asking the ticket publisher.

From the blog Kyle's Works Β» CS@Worcester by kyleprimmer and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Group Status Report

As a group, we started the week finding out that our original ticket, TRUNK-324, had been claimed by someone else. We had a quick meeting and agreed to work on the TRUNK-3009 instead. TRUNK-3009 is a documentation bug.

For this ticket we are supposed to look for all references in the wiki to Global Preferences, and change them to Settings. According to the description given in OpenMRS the β€œGlobal Properties” page was renamed and updated to just a β€œSettings” page for version 1.9. So if the wiki mentions GPs they need to be updated, as there are still hundreds of references to Global Properties on the wiki.

The description of the bug is somewhat vague, so before we start working on this one of our team member, Connor Kelly, put a comment on the page to make sure that our understanding of the ticket is what they want. The comment was as follows:

β€œMy intention is to go through the whole wiki and replace any instance of β€œGlobal Properties” or β€œglobal properties” with β€œSettings (formerly Global properties)”, is my undesrtanding correct on this or am I missing something? I don’t want to mess up the whole wiki.”

On Saturday, March 8, 2014, we got an answer on the comment saying that the update should include that the change only affects version 1.9 and above.

We are now ready to get started on searching and replacing any string β€œglobal property” within the wiki page.

The change and what users will find while reading the wiki page is as follows:

Settings (formerly Global Properties 1.8 and below)

Finally, as a group we have agreed to split up the documentation section found in the left panel of the OpenMRS Wiki home page.

From the blog Naty Zelaya Β» CS@Worcester by natyzelaya and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

More Readings…

Well, finally got the files and such accessible from my own computer in eclipse, which was more of a hassle than I really expected, I found I had to read up more on JUnits and how they work. Took a bit of time looking through various online sources, so now I feel like I can really get into this.

Hopefully, at least. Jury might still be out on that one. Learned a few new things, at least.

From the blog Kyle's Works Β» CS@Worcester by kyleprimmer and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

GitHub Activities

Well….This is kind of annoying. I hate that feeling that I’m not even sure what the heck I’m doing. GitHub doesn’t seem to like cooperation with me. I think I’ve gotten it downloaded properly, but I seem to have trouble finding things to edit and such.

I have been able to edit a few things on the School/Class Wiki, though. Managed to update my own page to include some of the information from the recent ‘assignment’ from class (blog link, OpenMRS ID, GitHub Username), and added a function to collapse all that information from the Issue Tracker activity. I find it a lot easier to work with that, seeing as if I’m not sure what I need to do, I can find another page with the formatting I’m looking for, then copy/experiment. Might look into doing some things for our project from there. Already started making the page, at least (though, it was mostly copy/paste from the original CS 401 page).

I managed to get linked to the project ticket for our group, though that was mostly them adding me, than anything else, and I think I’ve copied the files from the original to my machine, but I’m still looking for a way to edit….

Well, now I think I’m getting somewhere updating eclipse. Had to go in and update what I currently had on my computer, and then install Maven, though there were a few errors popping up. If I avoid the optional things, maybe…

Well, it seems to be working. Maybe. Fingers crossed…

Ok….. most of these downloads are going over 100%…… Hope nothing’s broken… Please? Well, restarting eclipse again…

HA! Finally got everything working (so far as I can tell). Hopefully this will let me keep working.

From the blog Kyle's Works Β» CS@Worcester by kyleprimmer and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

OpenMRS Set Up

Setting up the system has been difficult. My laptop is running Windows 8.1, so that’s the first challenge I have.

First, when I tried to check which version of java I had installed, I got this output: β€œ β€˜javac’ is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file”.Β So, I decided to check: Program > Java > About > Version 7 (1.7.0-b147). The Developers Guide instructs to check the version as follow β€œjavac –version” on the command line, but instead I entered β€œjava -version” and it worked!

Then, I got stuck in the installation step. I downloaded and run the OpenMRS SDK installer. The wizard setup was completed without outputting any error. Once again, in order to get the output in the console I had to change β€œomrs-version” to uppercase, β€œOMRS-version”, otherwise the result would not have succeeded.

This time, the prompt line gave me an error: β€œJAVA_HOME not found in your environment. Please set the JAVA_HOME variable in your environment to match the location of your Java installation”

If you are running into the same problem, here is the solution:

  1. Locate the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) Installation Directory
    1. Β If you didn’t change the installation path for the JavaΒ Runtime Environment during installation, it will be in a directory underΒ C:\Program Files\Java. Using Explorer, open the directoryΒ C:\Program Files\Java.
    2. Β Inside that path will be one or more subdirectories such asΒ C:\Program Β  Β  Β  Β  Β Files\Java\jre7
  2. Set the JAVA_HOME Variable
    1. Right-click theΒ My ComputerΒ icon on your desktop and selectΒ Properties.
    2. Click theΒ AdvancedΒ tab.
    3. Click theΒ Environment VariablesΒ button.
      1. UnderΒ System Variables, clickΒ New.
      2. Enter the variable name asΒ JAVA_HOME.
      3. Enter the variable value as the installation path for the Java Development Kit. (e.g.C:\Program Files\Java\jre7)
    4. ClickΒ OK.
    5. ClickΒ Apply Changes.

Close any command window which was open before you made these changes, and open a new command window. If the changes do not take effect even after reopening the command window, restart Windows.

After fixing the JAVA_HOME, I checked if the SDK is working properly. The console output looks similar as the one on the Developers Guide.

Now the last step, running OpenMRS locally, it starts to create the directory, but nothing happens. It never launches the web server to be tested. If I click the link, the web page loads blank. I’m still trying to figure out what I missed!

From the blog Naty Zelaya Β» CS@Worcester by natyzelaya and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Wiki & Git are FUN!

The third week of the semester has been very busy. Let’s start with the wiki editing that was started in class. This is the first time I have to edit a wiki. It was fun and easy to learn how to add and modify content. What I like about the wiki application is its simplicity, which allows any user to contribute text without being a web designer.

My wiki profile has information about the Issue Tracker Activity. This activity was useful in a way that I can get familiar with the OpenMRS Issue Tracker system, which is a system that allows browsing and filtering bugs. In this activity not only learned to browse and filter issues, but I also learned to find reports based on a specific project.

The second part of the assignment was the Git Videos and the tutorial, which gave me an insight of what Git is and how it works. Git is a Version Control System (VCS) with capability to keep track the history of every file, and changes made by a team member who is working or collaborating on a single project. VCS allows to revert files back to a previous state, revert the entire project, review changes made over time, see who last modified something that might be causing a problem, who introduced an issue and when, etc.

In summary, some features that Git provides are:

  • Configuration: Free download and installation; fast and easy setup.
  • Fast: Nearly all operations are performed locally (on local disk).
  • Distributed Version Control: if any server dies, any of the client repositories can be copied back up to the server to restore it.
  • Team Centric: Allows group of contributor working simultaneously within the same project.
  • Integrity: Contributor can’t lose information in transit or get file corruption without Git being able to detect it.
  • Merging Capability: Git is flexible when more than one user’s work needs to be brought together.
  • Opt in: You decide on which projects to participate.
  • Open Software: Let people offer contributions.
  • Backup: Every user has a full backup of all data.Β 

Finally, this week I went through the selection of 3 tickets within the issue tracker. I am very excited to work on projects related to database.

From the blog Naty Zelaya Β» CS@Worcester by natyzelaya and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

Ways to contribute to Open Source

An interesting aspect about open-source software is that it allows you to use your skills where you feel comfortable working with. Open-source helps people to discover that you don’t have to master all levels of computer science to contribute a piece of knowledge.

Personally, the readings have opened my eyes, and I’m glad that writing code is not the only way to contribute to large projects. Having 14 or more different ways to contribute to major projects make newbies want to add something to it.

IRC Activity

IRC activity in-class was enjoyable. It’s been a long time since the last time I chatted for over an hour. IRC is a great way to communicate in real time while working on large projects, especially since most people are looking for answers right away.

IRC is a great tool because it can be easily installed on user’s computers who have access to internet, regardless of the operating system running on the computer. IRC has different features such as chat and data transfer, file sharing, and also allows one to one communication using the private message.

From the blog Naty Zelaya Β» CS@Worcester by natyzelaya and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.

The Initial Blog

As I thought about my expectations of this course, Software Development Process, undoubtedly hope to have the opportunity to learn the techniques to solve development problems in an effective and efficient manner.Β Also, I am excited to work on a real and large project. I think it will give me the experience I need within the Computer Science field.

Writing blogs will be challenging because this is something that I did not expect at all. I’m not a blogger, actually this will be my first time writing blogs.

This course could not have had a better start than by reading β€œFree vs. Open”, along with other readings and the in-class activities.

Free vs. Open

When thinking about Free Software, most people might think about software free of charge. However, the idea is more complex since it promotes user’s respect and freedom, even if one has to pay for such software. Personally, I think that free software it a good way to express our intellectual and to contribute in the improvement or development of new Β software.

For software to be considered as “free” must meet four conditions: 1. Users have the freedom to run the program, 2. freedom to study and change the program, 3. freedom to redistribute copies, 4. freedom to distributeΒ  copies of the modified version.

On the other hand, open source licenses are too restrictive; cannot be use it as it is our means, and do not allow the user to install modified versions of executables.

OpenMRS: Health IT

An electronic medical record (EMR) is not only a need of replacing paper with digital technology, but it also provides the opportunity to improve the workflow. Persuading physicians to use information technology (IT) in their practices may result in increased efficiency and reduced costs.Β OpenMRS is one among many of the different EMR softwares and here are the key points:

  • Accuracy (e.g. can reduce medical errors.)
  • Efficiency (e.g. improve data exchange between health it applications.)
  • Better patient care (e.g. can support decision making by health care professionals)
  • Understanding data about public health (e.g. data captured can be used to monitor public health standards.)
  • Serving as a record of patient care (e.g. historical record of patient care that can be easily transferrable to different locations.)

The information provided in the OpenMRS Guide is a good start for a better understanding of this project.

Git Activity

The Git program is something new for me, but the activity in class gave me a brief idea of the software. Since we are going to work in teams during this semester, this free-open software seems to be easy to learn and appropriate.

From the blog Naty Zelaya Β» CS@Worcester by natyzelaya and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.