[wow] new collaboration tools for WOW

[Matt Jones]

Neo, Jen, Ilmi, Rich, and Paul,

At Rich's request, I have set up several tools for working 
collaboratively on the WOW project.  These are tools that we use at 
NCEAS for other projects, and have found that they increase our 
productivity as a group substantially.  They inject a bit of structure 
into things, which can take a bit to get used to, but they are really 
quite straightforard to learn to use.  Please let me know if you have 
any questions.  A brief synopsis of the tools is below, and Rich 
volunteered to explain their use to each of you if and when needed.

Cheers,

Matt

PS, pls forward this to Paul as I don't have his address. Thanks.

Accounts
--------
I've created accounts for each of you on the cvs.ecoinformatics.org 
server to support mail and other tools.  You can change your password by 
logging in using SSH (secure shell) and running the "passwd" command. 
I'll send your username and password in a separate email.

Shared documents and source code:
---------------------------------
The WOW CVS (Concurrent Versioning System) module provides a shared 
space for developing documents and source code.  It tracks the version 
history of every document in the module, and allows you to access any 
version of a document that has ever been committed.  It also notifies a 
mailing list when someone changes a document, so it is easier to 
synchronize work with other people.  All documents in CVS are also 
visible on the web at http://cvs.ecoinformatics.org.

This is by far the most valuable of the tools in this list, but also 
takes a bit of learning to use it.  To write to the CVS server you'll 
need to use a CVS client program.  There are several available but I 
like the free TortoiseCVS (http://www.tortoisecvs.org). Here is the 
connection information:

CVSROOT = :ext:dunne at ecoinformatics.org:/cvs

Be sure to change "dunne" in the string above to your username on 
ecoinformatics.org (dunne, iyoon, martinez, pyoon, rwilliams) when 
connecting.  Rich can give you an overview of how to use cvs, right Rich?

WOW mailing lists
-----------------
Two mailing lists were created.  One for general WOW discussions 
(wow-dev at ecoinformatics.org) and one for CVS log messages generated when 
someone changes files in the CVS repository 
(wow-cvs at ecoinformatics.org).  I subscribed everyone except Paul (I need 
his email address).  The wow-dev list is currently set to create a 
publicly visible html archive of the messages, but this feature can be 
changed to be a private archive or turned off altogether if you desire. 
  You can change your subscription options and see archives of the 
wow-dev list via a web page for each list:

wow-dev:  http://www.ecoinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/wow-dev
wow-cvs:  http://www.ecoinformatics.org/mailman/listinfo/wow-cvs

Task, Issue, and Bug list
-------------------------
I have created a WOW module under our bug tracking system.  We use this 
for recording and assigning tasks, for describing and discussing 
features and enhancements of a software system, for documenting changes 
and decisions about software systems, and for reporting and describing 
the fixes for software bugs.  Very useful.  Accessible at:

http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org

Create an account for yourself there (using your email address) in order 
to make changes.  Look under the WOW module for WOW stuff.  There's only 
one WOW task right now, so some of the other modules (e.g. EML) will 
give you a better idea of how we use the tool.

IRC chat server
---------------
We have a shared chat server (Internet Relay Chat) for quick discussions 
among a distributed team.  Its like instant messaging but has a lot more 
features that allow for larger groups to chat.  You'll need an IRC 
client (see the link below).  You'll also need to send me your IP 
address so that I can authorize you to connect.  We'll probably start 
off discussions in the #wow channel.  Rich can help you get started 
setting up, but there is a summary page that I wrote for another project 
here that might be sufficient:

    http://seek.ecoinformatics.org/dev/irc.html

See you on IRC soon!