[Zope-dev] A good collaboration 'partner' ? Was: ZPatterns design questions

[Spicklemire, Jerry]

Hi Steve, and fellow ZPatterns Wannabees,

As to the sorts of things most of us need to keep track of that could tie
into a simple "ToDo" List, so far we've seen suggestions for an Address Book
and Deliverables. The first sounds kind of like a Contact List to me, or
maybe an Ownership or Collaboration List. A way to keep track of other folks
involved or concerned with each "ToDo" item. The second sounds like adding a
Status Field to each "ToDo" item, and defining what it takes for each to be
tagged as "Done". This might take the form of completed steps, finished
output, or whatever, making up a sort of mini-workflow.

In the a Normalization process of a tabular database each of these could be
seen as child tables, since there could be more than one Contact or
Deliverable for a "ToDo" item in the parent table.

While we're on the subject of fleshing out a "ToDo" schema, consider a
interfacing with a simple calendar, for task scheduling. This would enable
assignment of target dates, and dependencies. For example, if task B must be
done by the 37th of Penultember, the closer we get to the 37th, the "hotter"
task B gets. Furthermore, if task A must be at least halfway complete before
task B can be started, task A should heat up even sooner.

This is basically the sort of thing a Project Management system does. A
simple dependency model might be added in the form of a few "rules" based on
comparing status, dependency, and target dates. "Hot" items could be
highlighted for special attention, when a critical threshold is crossed.

This may be too ambitious, or even counter productive. I realize the point
is not to create the ultimate Personal Information Manager application, but
to illustrate how ZPatterns aids integration across "unrelated"
applications. Still, integrating an Address Book, Calendar, and ToDo list
isn't all the far fetched, as each one could have been created as handy
little stand alone utilities.

On the other hand, knowing you're working on something that could actually
turn out to be useful might assist in the motivation process! 

Later,
Jerry S.