The WGBH.org Development Blog

Been a low-key week here at WGBH Online World Headquarters, or as we call it WOW HQ.

The big event of the week: I got a haircut. All that goofy hair on my head was making it hard to think properly, so I had quite a bit of it lopped off. Things should really start picking up now.

Pete and I have been finishing up our first pass at the TV schedule pages (a multi-channel grid, full day schedules by channel, and a Programs A-Z list). Doesn’t sound like much, just three pages (basically), but there’s quite a bit involved, as you might imagine.

The plan is to get these pages in shape and then post to our test suite for a preliminary round of testing. This testing will be done by people other than Pete and I and the purpose is really just to evaluate how well the data is being imported from PBS. We haven’t worked up a formal test plan yet, but it will most likely involve comparing the WGBH schedules on PBS.org (which use the exact same TV Guide data) to the schedules we’re producing with the new code. We won’t yet be testing the ability to modify this information locally.

Needless to say, testing is just an annoying formality. The odds of there being any bugs in our code are minimal.

I’ve also been working with our new project manager Louise (Hi, Louise! I know you’re reading this…) to help fully flesh out the project tasks and schedule. That’s been a long process but I think we finally have all of the pieces laid out and scheduled.

In addition to the schedule page testing, we’ve also blocked out a longer period of time for full functional testing after we complete all of the development for this module (i.e. schedule pages and program and episode pages), as you would expect. Again, that’s testing outside to be done by others distinct from the unit testing that Pete and I do during coding. We thought about trying to break out functional testing into a more discreet chunks, but given the relatively small size of this project, it didn’t seem to make sense.

OK, I gotta go wrap up these schedule pages. Don’t forget to call mom on Sunday! I mean your mom, not mine. I’ll handle her.