Jack Waugh's Field Reports

I am working on a software system that can be deployed in web servers for online publications. …read more

Readers of these field reports may have some difficulty understanding the reports' contexts if those readers have forgotten, or never knew, the nature and purpose of the organization at which the VISTA is working. So, by way of reminder: I work at the Center for Community Technology Services (CCTS) at the University of Baltimore. We help nonprofits in the Baltimore, Md. …read more

Up until yesterday, the design for CCTS's CMS called for using the Textile markup language for the contents of a "block" element (i. e., a paragraph, heading, list item, or table cell). And in fact that's implemented in our code. However, thinking about how to import documents exposed problems with using Textile. …read more

I implemented the "main menu" for our CMS. Nine rules determine which pages the menu indexes when a given page is being displayed. Currently, I am working on the ability to import HTML files exported from Microsoft Word (even though everyone should switch to OpenOffice.org).

I am still working on the CMS. I am investigating how we can accept uploads of Microsoft Word documents and extract the content from them to convert to our format. Most recently I contributed some test cases to the tests that get run repeatedly to defend against breaking the code. …read more

I'm still working on the generic CMS. …read more

I am participating in the development, in Ruby on Rails, of a generic Content Management System (CMS) and a library that lets administrators edit documents that use styles and can be displayed to the public (or a smaller audience) over the Web. …read more

Up until a couple of days ago, one could have said that I was just reading and learning and trying to catch up. But then I submitted my first change to the body of code that the organization maintains, and closed my first ticket. So, even though the code I contributed is trivial, I have officially produced something.

I now have a place to stay in Baltimore. So that's a relief; I shall enjoy shorter commute times, no more time consumed in househunting, and less ongoing expense.

I made some partial study of Ruby's metaprogramming capabilities.