Dealing With List Server Upgrades
Like all commercial products, list servers are upgraded.
When any product that allows customization, especially when
its achieved through source code changes, is upgraded those
with customized versions are faced with a choice. They can stay
on an older version and possibly miss additional functionality
provided by the new product, move to the new product and lose
customized features or attempt to move all customized features
into the new product, repeating some portion of
the work that went into customizing the product.
When the user interface customization was limited to page
headers and footers, upgrading was pretty simple. Each
place a change was made, a standard comment identifying a
customization was inserted. Standard code was not deleted
but commented out. This made it easy to identify all
changes and then to find the corresponding areas in the
upgraded version. Unless the upgrade changed code that
had been customized, copying in the customizations and
commenting out the code which matched the commented out
code from the previous version was a simple mechanical
process.
When changes became more extensive and especially when they
started to impact the actual functionality of the user interface
it was not practical to keep the Perl user interface in sync
with the current commercial version. Fortunately the core
functionality of Lyris is provided by a compiled executable.
The standard Perl user interface uses the Lyris API and sits
on top of executable via the API. As long as the API is extended and calls
to existing functions are not changed, and old version of the
Perl user interface will continue to run with the new executable.
Further, the largest user interface changes tend to be in the
administrative portion. Since one Lyris executable supports
multiple web sites, it's a simple matter to set up a virtual
server, accessible only by system administrators, and run a
completely standard and up to date user interface, including
all the administrative functions.
This way, the only functionality that is missing for end
users are new list viewing, sorting or searching options,
provided in the upgraded Perl user interface. Such user
interface changes are relatively infrequent. Since Lyris is a list
server and used overwhelmingly by users via the email interface
and only occasionally by a few users via the web interface,
this limitation is not significant.
Top of Page -
Site Map
Copyright © 2000 - 2014 by George Shaffer. This material may be
distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in
http://GeodSoft.com/terms.htm
(or http://GeodSoft.com/cgi-bin/terms.pl).
These terms are subject to change. Distribution is subject to
the current terms, or at the choice of the distributor, those
in an earlier, digitally signed electronic copy of
http://GeodSoft.com/terms.htm (or cgi-bin/terms.pl) from the
time of the distribution. Distribution of substantively modified
versions of GeodSoft content is prohibited without the explicit written
permission of George Shaffer. Distribution of the work or derivatives
of the work, in whole or in part, for commercial purposes is prohibited
unless prior written permission is obtained from George Shaffer.
Distribution in accordance with these terms, for unrestricted and
uncompensated public access, non profit, or internal company use is
allowed.
|