Additional_Clarification_from_Current_Database_Maintainer.pdf

Additional Clarification from Current Database Maintainer:

1) Do you know what was used to create the graphs in the results? I would like to use as much technology that's already in use to help keep the cost down.

a. Google charts and Gnuplot are currently used. This could be changed if the developer is more comfortable with other plotting plug-ins.

2) The current site has a Public area and a Member Access Area, is this a requirement for the project? Since we do not have member access, is there a significant functionality difference between the two?

a. Only the public pages are included in this project

3) As far as the Portuguese content and query results, is a translator used for conversion, or is there Portuguese data in the database?

a. The database has English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish fields for some of the tables.

For public pages there are language-dependent view files as well. The appropriate database attributes and view files are used based on the user-selected language. French and Spanish view files can be created with English content, which will be translated when Canada and Mexico start using the system. We can provide assistance translating into Portuguese as needed.

4) Am I correct in saying that there are approximately 15 pages per country for a total of 30 pages?

a. Yes, there are about 15 public page sets (Ruby controllers). Each set of pages has one or more view files (usually more) as needed to implement the functionality.

• It would be good to have the vendor come on-site at the beginning of the project, but it may not be required.

• We share code between developers through github (github.com). The project will be developed on a separate git branch. The source code is stored in “the cloud” on github.com. Once the project is over I can deactivate their access to our github project. They would still have any code stored on their machine but no further access to new project code. So I don’t think they need to use government computers. Give me a call if this is not clear.

• The vendor does not need to use VPN to access the development environment, so a USDA computer is not required. Any windows development machine will work.

• Database redesign: I think there is a terminology confusion here. Some of our users refer to the A-GRIN system as “the database” which is not technically correct. For programmers a “database redesign” means changing the schema, which is not part of this project. We are focusing on the “presentation layer”, which refers to web pages and supporting logic (controllers and views in Ruby terminology).

• The redesign is limited to the public pages. No change to the internal pages is under consideration.

• The project uses a model/controller/view architecture, as is standard with Ruby on Rails. Public pages use their own controller and view files which will be redesigned for this project. Public pages also reference global models; models probably will not need to change for this project.

• We currently use Rails 3.0 (soon to move to Rails 3.1) and Ruby 1.9.3.

• We use automated testing with the “rake test” command. Automated testing of new code is part of this project.