It seems like too often I have to question GITI in some way. Sometimes it is in the form of the amount of time I have to spend directly modifying the database, other times it is in the lack of a coherent user experience. The most recent situation of this was this morning when several times while working out I had to go into the database to add new entries for exercises that were not yet in the ‘fields’ table. If I were a normal end user I would be basically screwed in that situation since there isn’t an “other” and the health_exercise module uses only “system” fields, it does not allow for the end user to extend what is available. Why not? I do not know, it just was never considered, I guess as a result of me reacting to other modules that use user-level fields that are really inconvenient. I have found that in general the system level fields are more useful and tend to be less user intrusive, since it forces an administrative decision on what the fields should contain, but in the end it comes out show GITI to be a little inflexible in some areas. In almost no area of GITI do I use any type of coherent shared fields… a set of base values specified by an administrator and then a set of additional user values that can apply to the same field. Also, it is an ideal of GITI for each module to control its own fields when they are needed, this hasn’t gone so well in implementation as I have yet to write a single bit of code to allow a user to add an assignment type to the assignment addition area write in the education module, or about 1000 other annoying little spots where such functionality would be really cool. Now I find myself with a decision to make. GITI needs consistent fields, and of course with its requirement of minimizing waste, it must keep user information redundancy to a minimum. Which would work better: users able to add values to fields for themselves (in addition to system values), or a way for users to propose system values? Maybe the answer is in both, but that gets complicated, as it would require allowing users to add values themselves and then recommend for system wide usage, at which point the user would lose access to modify the value they created. I want consistency and extensibility, but there is so much to consider. There have been no procedures specified until now to handle more than 2 or 3 users on GITI, but if I want to get feedback and learn how to make GITI better, I am going to have to prepare it for more than the number of users in my comfort zone. There simply is no precedent in GITI’s history for the type of things I am wanting to accomplish.

 

Related Links:

http://www.pcfire.net/giti/ideals/ – The GITI Ideals