I tried writing an upgrade a half-dozen times, but it was always so complex a prospect, I ended up abandoning it.
Around early December I started again, and this time it's for real!
Late last night I coaxed it into displaying its first question:
And this morning, a second question!
Sure, it's ugly, but it's got a great personality. (And what a personality!)
The main problem with the old system was inflexibility, the thing was as inflexible as a cast-iron oven. Anytime something new came up, I'd have to crack open the system and try to weld something new into it. This time around, the questionnaire programming commands are all kept outside the system in web-accessible plug-ins.
So what this means is that a programmer could erase all the commands and start over if they chose, setting a completely different style of interviewing up in an afternoon. The framework supports everything so the commands just sit on top like transient little fairies.
What's really cool about this is that this isn't just for me either, this is going to be released free to the world, so colleges and businesses and so on have another option outside of hiring an expensive firm to host their survey, or buying a $5,000 interviewing package that doesn't do exactly what they need. They still need an experienced programmer to pull it off, so it's not like I'm putting myself out of business -- it's just another option that reduces the overall cost of research.
Very cool indeed.
* * *
I had a pair of turntables I didn't use, because apparently I'm a dork, so on a hunch, I asked the Freckle and Aperock dynamic duo if they wanted them. They said yes, so we drove over, had dinner at a cool Mexican place and dropped them off. I was impressed. Aperock has hundreds of vinyl records at their apartment.
Talk about a great hunch.
