[freeside-devel] Latest Changes (and, of course, lots more questions).

[ivan]

On Thu, Nov 29, 2001 at 05:55:56PM -0600, Dave Burgess wrote:
> Last night, I went through the source and removed every reference to the
> svc_acct_sm table, along with all of the scripts that update it.  Is this
> something that anyone would want?

No.  Users need a reasonable upgrade path from pre-1.4 versions.  See
httemplate/docs/upgrade8.html.  Maybe in 1.5.

> I noticed, with some anticipation, the svc_wo table and the svc_charge
> tables are starting to show up.  How close are we on these to getting
> into the system?

These are relics from pre-1.0 and should probably be removed.

svc_charge was a bad idea; you don't need svc_ records to create a
charge.

svc_wo was simply never finished, but a svc_ record for work orders seems
like a useful thing if you wanted to contribute such.

> I have removed all of the references to SSAN from the system.  The
> current use of this information is inconsistent with the Privacy Act of
> 1974 WRT the definition of a private system of records.  I would like
> to make this either 'no longer available' or available through a
> setting in an option file.

Unless someone speaks up who needs it, I agree.  A patch would be super.

> I'm getting ready to go live with the new database (we are at the handwashing
> stage for the data).  Has anyone produced a set of patches that actually
> implement ACH?

Not to my knowledge.  I recall someone who wanted to add some fields for
it but I never received a patch; check the archives. 

See the Business::OnlinePayment modules, which is where I'm implementing
new payment schemes that customers ask for.

http://search.cpan.org/search?mode=module&query=Business%3A%3AOnlinePayment

> It's a minor thing with me, but there are differences between the word
> 'depreciated' and 'deprecated'.  Unless the features that are being
> removed have actually had their value to the company reduced through
> amortization, I would like to make a suggestion that we use the word
> 'deprecated' from now on.  I have included this in my set of
> changes to the pre5 code.  Is anyone interested in these?

Yes, please send patch.

On a related note, I could sure use a new term for "Referral" (as in where
a customer heard about your service) now that there are the
customer-to-customer referrals.

> I asked once before about the proper method for submitting PRs and
> patches.  Can someone give me the pointer to the document that
> describes how you want this handled?

Problem reports to the user mailing list for now.  I do have an RT2
<http://www.fsck.com/projects/rt/> instance setup with the what used to be
the TODO file and a bunch of other stuff I'm trying to get under control,
but it's a mess and I don't have it setup on a public machine yet. 

For starters, send patches as unified context diffs to the mailing list.
I'll probably set you up with CVS access and have you apply them yourself,
but I'd like to see them first. 

> Is the source code for svc_www.cgi/*.html ready?

I don't think so.

> If not, would it be worth my while to try and write it up quick?

Sure.

> Has anyone ever tried to write a freeside database verifier?

Not to my knowledge.

> This
> would be a good first step in writing a 'compressor' to get rid of
> records which are no longer in use in the database.  Is anyone
> interested?  test/test.pl might be a good start, but it doesn't work in
> an ASP environment.
>
> Has anyone changed the edit/cust_main.cgi to allow direct (or indirect)
> entry of the referral_custnum?

No.  If you write it, it should require a config file setting to turn it
on. 

> This would be particularly cool for
> people that have tracked referrals in the past but have never had a
> place to put it.

-- 
_ivan