[whups] Using whups moving forward

[Gary Weinreb]

Mike,

It's nice to see your post.  I divide my time between Durham and Charlotte, 
so perhaps as our mutual Whups-based projects progress we can meet in 
Durham and chat...

Comments interspersed:

At 11:11 AM 11/4/2002 -0500, Mike Baptiste wrote:

>We're looking at using whups (and a number of other horde packages) for
>both internal and external stuff in our IT Department (Duke University's
>Engineerng School)

<SNIP>

Are you specifically looking at using Whups for "Bug Tracking"? or are you 
interested in using it for other things?

<SNIP>

>Also, it might be nice to have some type of regexp object in permissions
>so I could create a group that looks for domain duke.edu or something
>like that.  This would be a very powerful feature to help mold your
>ticket permissions across multiple projects.

This seems similar to why I'm interested in some sort of templating 
mechanism.  I, as you may have gathered, am very interested in modifying 
Whups for Project/Workflow Management.  I have recurring Clients and 
Projects, and I don't want to have my users recreate States, Priorities, 
Responsible Users, People to Notify, etc. over and over again...

>What are the plans for email notifications ala, ticket changes and

<SNIP>

It seems that Chuck is rolling ahead in fleshing out the Permissions and 
Notification stuff.  I'm looking forward to seeing what he comes up with...

>I really like the ideas of a previous poster regarding nag integration.
>~   Very cool idea.

That's me.  Glad you like.  I'd like to hear how you are thinking about 
using Whups.  Maybe you can help shape my ideas towards a solution that 
will serve you as well...

>We're really excited about this and hope to be able to provide
>development help as we deploy this.  We eventually would like to try and
>mold a number of horde projects into a Sourceforge like environment for
>open source development at Duke.  We're just geeting our feet wet beyond
>a vanilla IMP/Turba install with whups and we'll grow from there.

Exciting!  I've actually done some consulting for the business end of 
Duke.  I'd love to participate in this if there is any room for outside 
folks...  Maybe I should become a student! <g>.


>Am I totally off base here?

I don't think so.  As a relative newcomer to the Horde project, but with 
20+ years of IT consulting experience, I think this is a very serious 
solution to a broad spectrum of IT needs.  As a framework it is very 
flexible and easily scalable, two attributes I look for...  I have always 
preferred having source code to software that I haven't written, but which 
am responsible for implementing.

My current project, which involves modifying/extending Whups, is my first 
significant interaction with the Horde team, and I am very encouraged and 
enthused.  I am under no illusions.  I lurked on the Horde lists and messed 
around on my own for months before jumping in.  I haven't yet contributed 
anything, but I sense that I am more cautious than some.  Modifying these 
programs correctly, even implementing them effectively, is not for the 
novice, nor for one who requires lot's of hand-holding, but for someone who 
is willing to figure things out for themselves, it is a tremendous body of 
work upon which to build.

My strategy is to uncover common ground between meeting my client's needs 
and helping to discover the will of the Horde community, remaining flexible 
as I observe what others are interested in achieving, and how they want to 
go about it, and attempting to contribute the pieces that seem to fall to 
me.  This last part is the work for me, as I have always been quicker at 
coming up with good ideas, than at implementing them...

Regards,
Gary Weinreb