Team's Hardware Library List

[Vinster]

Is it possible to have a Team's hardware library, similar to a users HW library?

 

I'm looking at getting some used (or new to me) hardware but I want to get something other team members don't have and having a teams HW library would make my search a little easier.

 

because the only way I know how right now is to browse each one of my team-mates HW and derive my own list...

 

Let me know if this is possible or if it's already available and I haven't figured it our already.

 

thanks

 

Vin

[Hondacity]

good idea vinster!

[knopflerbruce]

+1:)

[I.M.O.G.]

+1 Keeping internal lists for specific tasks is difficult, but worthwhile. Having a list on HWBot would make it more useful.

 

Going one step further, I would like it as well if I could maintain my own hardware library. For example, if there were a checkbox or something I could clear to indicate if I still have a part or if I have sold it... Then if we encourage our teammates to keep their hardware library updated, we can look at all hardware the team has run, as well as all hardware the team currently still owns.

Edited February 7, 2012 by I.M.O.G.

[Mr.Scott]

+1 Keeping internal lists for specific tasks is difficult, but worthwhile. Having a list on HWBot would make it more useful.

 

Going one step further, I would like it as well if I could maintain my own hardware library. For example, if there were a checkbox or something I could clear to indicate if I still have a part or if I have sold it... Then if we encourage our teammates to keep their hardware library updated, we can look at all hardware the team has run, as well as all hardware the team currently still owns.

Nice. I agree.

[Vinster]

+1 Keeping internal lists for specific tasks is difficult, but worthwhile. Having a list on HWBot would make it more useful.

 

Going one step further, I would like it as well if I could maintain my own hardware library. For example, if there were a checkbox or something I could clear to indicate if I still have a part or if I have sold it... Then if we encourage our teammates to keep their hardware library updated, we can look at all hardware the team has run, as well as all hardware the team currently still owns.

 

Like a retired HW checkbox.... I like that addition to this idea.

 

Vin

[Massman]

Liking the ideas here .

[oanvoanc]

+1 Keeping internal lists for specific tasks is difficult, but worthwhile. Having a list on HWBot would make it more useful.

 

Going one step further, I would like it as well if I could maintain my own hardware library. For example, if there were a checkbox or something I could clear to indicate if I still have a part or if I have sold it... Then if we encourage our teammates to keep their hardware library updated, we can look at all hardware the team has run, as well as all hardware the team currently still owns.

 

+1

[Vinster]

Massman, will this idea be implemented? if so is there a timeline to completion? I know you guys are busy... and I don't want to sound pushy.. I'm nearly done putting together my budget for some HW and am wondering if I should just continue to make up my own team HW list or if I should just wait for this idea to be implemented. I don't code for web apps so I don't know how much or little work this is.

 

Vin

[Massman]

Well, currently we do not have Frederik working on hwbot full-time, which means development is limited to high priority issues only. This is not a high priority issue, so it won't be scheduled until we have enough funding to hire Frederik fulltime again.

 

Our next evaluation is mid-march to determine if we can have another full-time employee from Q2 forward. So, earliest possible scheduling time is April.

[Vinster]

Well, currently we do not have Frederik working on hwbot full-time, which means development is limited to high priority issues only. This is not a high priority issue, so it won't be scheduled until we have enough funding to hire Frederik fulltime again.

 

Our next evaluation is mid-march to determine if we can have another full-time employee from Q2 forward. So, earliest possible scheduling time is April.

 

All good, I appreciate the quick reply Massman. Thanks for all this hard work.

 

Vin

[Vinster]

Can we revive this idea now that we have more coding help with the site?

 

Vin

[Devroush]

Maybe but we would need a more clever way to keep track of the library. User libraries can grow quite big, team libraries would be an order of magnitude larger.

[Vinster]

Maybe but we would need a more clever way to keep track of the library. User libraries can grow quite big, team libraries would be an order of magnitude larger.

 

I don't think so. but how else do you suggest to make it better?

 

Vin

[Devroush]

Currently, when you go to your library, we check all your submissions and get the hardware from it with a giant SQL query. If you have a lot of submissions, this can quickly turn into a 5+ second query. For large teams, this would probably turn into a 1 minute query.

 

To make a team library, we would need to keep the library itself stored in the database and update it once a day or so.

 

edit: currently, about 400 such queries a day take more than 5 seconds. Doing such queries for teams would hammer the database pretty hard .

Edited February 11, 2013 by Devroush

[I.M.O.G.]

5 second query is a long lock, especially if you don't have row level locking, and would likely disable the site intermittently for more users than it helps. A 1 minute query would almost certainly handicap the site. Depends partially if you are on myisam tables or innodb or something, assuming you are on mysql. Table locking is a common issue with vbulletin on big boards, because myisam is the default there for all tables, and it doesn't support row level locking - in a typical vbulletin setup, long search queries can create a backlog where updates can't be performed on a table, and everyone is hanging until the lock clears and the backlog can be caught up.

 

So to make it happen, you'd probably be looking at changing the table layout for where the team library is stored in the DB. Alternatively, you'd be looking at setting up a slave DB instance, where only the team table is stored then just letting it lock to all hell on long queries. It wouldn't be the most useful this way, but it could be easier and it would ensure other site functions aren't handicapped.

 

The third option I guess would be what devroush alluded to, and its probably the best option though more complicated because it means actually addressing the core problem - handling the library in a more graceful manner, with some sort of improved data model which doesn't depend on massively ugly queries to make it work. The current method for user libraries makes sense - it just works, and only in exceptional cases does the query run long. But it sounds like it doesn't translate to team libraries where exceptionally long queries would be the norm.

 

Regardless, I'm glad it isn't my problem... I agree with Vinster - I would love to see this revisited and figured out.

[Massman]

I've added it to the Rev5 backlog, but not as a high priority since it will probably involve a lot of work.

[Vinster]

Thanks Massman, and thanks Devroush for explaining the way the library populates now, I didn't know it queried all the submissions every time I clicked on that button. I thought the table built up daily or weekly and just presented itself on request.

 

Vin

[Vinster]

I created an excel doc with a little code that puts together and sorts by product. only thing is I have to retrieve the user HW manually.

 

is there an easy way I could retrieve each users data? right now it's a manual copy/paste. I'm willing to share my excel sheet if anyone is interested.

 

Here is the output; http://www.411overkill.com/vin/

 

Vin

[Vinster]

Really old thread revival....

 

Vin

[mr.paco]

This would be such a fantastic addition.

Would make things so much easier for teams when prepping for team comps, purchasing new HW etc with out having to go to each and every members library back forth to compare n see who has what.

 

Is this possible?

[Alan_Alberino]

This would be such a fantastic addition.

Would make things so much easier for teams when prepping for team comps, purchasing new HW etc with out having to go to each and every members library back forth to compare n see who has what.

 

Is this possible?

 

Anyway people sells hardware so maybe they don't have it anymore, don't know how effective would it be...

[Vinster]

Anyway people sells hardware so maybe they don't have it anymore, don't know how effective would it be...

 

The main point is if you're shopping for gear, you can pick hardware your teammates haven't benched yet and that would help your TPP.

 

The retired HW checkbox suggested on page 1 would also be a nice add to keep up with what HW teammates currently have to help plan for comps like the team cup.

 

Both those together here would be like the how stats changed baseball... teams could actually plan and evolve instead of running around like blind mice bumping heads.

 

Vin

[mr.paco]

Anyway people sells hardware so maybe they don't have it anymore, don't know how effective would it be...

 

Its very well known that some members sell/trade/kill/buy hardware everyday.

If thats the the case; same thing can be said for the Individual members HardWare library.

 

A lot of folks here dont really care what the other members on their team have cause they pretty much bench for themselves not the team, especially those teams that have hundreds if not thousands of members. But then you have TEAMs that rely & work with each other and having a list of all members hardware in one place would help and benefit those teams

[mr.paco]

Pretty much something along these lines:

 

Similar to what you see in each individual members profile now but with a twist.

 

For TEAM version

when you click HARDWARE LIBRARY TAB the view shows the hardware on left as it does now but instead of showing how many submission was made on the right it shows the number of team members that have that piece of HW.

 

When you click on that number

the next page lists all the members by name that have that HW on the left and the number of submissions they made with it on the right.

 

when you click on the number of submissions made for a given member it then shows a list like it does now; each submission that member made.

 

Also like the idea of a tick box of sort to indicate if that piece of HW is still owned or not

 

I can not say if this is something easy or not to implement, (way above my pay grade ) but would surly go a long way in aiding teams.

 

Like anything else; its just an idea...