Spring Work
This spring I will create a method for users to store custom data in RPInventory.
The biggest complaint about RPInventory at the moment is its rigidity in allowed data. When the project was initially created, the thought was to only have RPI Union clubs use the system, but we've found that many more in the community could benefit from such a system. So, in a nutshell, I'm going to change that.
I plan on creating an method for users to add additional fields to their inventory items, allowing them to store whatever kind of information they'd like. By whatever they'd like, I really mean a generic alphanumeric phrase, a numeric choice, or a set of options. I'm going to be limiting myself to these generic three options, but hopefully I'll be able to implement some more tricky alternatives later on.
I'll be starting with the generic alphanumeric and numeric choices right away, as they have one less layer of difficulty attached.
There was some talk about looking into options like MongoDB or CouchDB, but I believe I'd like to finish this up in MySQL. I think the better approach, if I or someone else wanted to, is to create a whole new database class that would interface with (Couch/Mongo)DB. That way, we can preserve all of the existing MySQL code, and just add to it, giving users more than just one option.
I've tried to do as much thinking through this as I can, but I'm sure I'll run into some unforeseen issues, but hey, that's half of the fun of programming!
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