[Phpmyadmin-devel] GSoC Project - AJAX Error Reporting

Abhishek Kandoi abhikandoi2000 at gmail.com
Sat Apr 20 21:24:21 CEST 2013


On Sat, Apr 20, 2013 at 11:34 PM, Rouslan Placella <rouslan at placella.com>wrote:

> On 04/20/2013 04:29 PM, Abhishek Kandoi wrote:
> > There was something I wanted to know about.
> > Would it be better to show an alert on the client side when an error
> > which can impact the client side system occurs?
> > Or as per my opinion we can simply create a custom modal box to show
> > only those errors which affect the client-side system badly in a simple
> > yet nice manner. Something like "Ops something went wrong, it may affect
> > your working. Want to send a detailed error report to the developers of
> > phpMyAdmin".
>
> Dialogs for this feature should not be modal as, IMO, that would be too
> intrusive.
>

Got it, this would disrupt their working and may even make a bad impression
of intrusion.


>
> > This way we can get a detailed report from the user for really bad
> > errors. Hence helping our developers to better understand the possible
> > cause of the error, and hence better diagnose it. We can encourage
> > clients to send a bit descriptive error report which may contain what
> > all they did which resulted in a particular error. Tackling and fixing
> > bugs would become easier this way.
> >
> > Also I would request you to refine my idea so that I can set particular
> > goals for this project. Some more ideas from your side would be really
> > helpful.
>
> Refining the idea is your job, not ours.
>

Sure, thanks for telling about this.


>
> Oh, and we use bottom posting on this mailing list...


Sorry, but I didn't understand what you want to convey. I am doing it
wrong? Please guide me if yes.

Ok, so here is what I have thought this far.

The client-side system would be behaving in the background without any
disturbance to the client. The client-side system will send any Ajax
Related error to our server-side system where the error will be stored in a
database according to its type and the predicted level of problem that it
can cause to the client-side system.  Errors reported will contain no
information about the client hence protecting their privacy. It would also
be devoid of any kind of sensitive information which could possibly be
hacked over a network hence removing the need for an encryption system.

At the server-side there would be a web-interface that will allow
phpMyAdmin developers to diagnose errors related to Ajax. The system will
provide all the information related to an error for the developers to look
upon (I would be documenting both the client and server-side error system
at the end of the GSoC). The documentation will also provide some
information related to common errors that may occur on the client-side,
thus helping them in the process of diagnosis.

The server-side web-interface would comprise of a simple left-side
navigation menu for easy access to various locations on the website. The
home screen would provide an overview of the recent errors that were added
to the database and latest discussion by various developers on popular
errors. Then there would be a functionality to directly forward bug reports
to the phpMyAdmin bug tracker. Also as suggested on the ideas page there
would be a functionality to search the database for specific types of
errors based on their type, how frequently they occur. Moreover I was
thinking of a small wiki for the error system so that a developer who has
figured out the cause of a particular error can then document the problem
to help others in fixing similar errors. This way other developers will be
able to search the wiki for errors similar to one they are working on based
on some tags(maybe), and hence fix them without loss of valuable time.

What do you think about it? Please comment.

>
> Bye,
> Rouslan
>
> > On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 3:15 AM, Rouslan Placella <rouslan at placella.com
> > <mailto:rouslan at placella.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     On 04/15/2013 07:16 PM, Abhishek Kandoi wrote:
> >     > Hi Rouslan,
> >     >
> >     > Thanks for replying. I was unable to reply properly using my
> >     SourceForge account.
> >       I have worked with a few mailing lists like Google Groups, but this
> >     one seemed different to me.
> >       I didn't even get emails when you people replied on this thread
> >     because I had my Digest Mode On,
> >       thus I didn't have an option to Reply to All.
> >     >
> >     > I will be formatting manually for this time only, as I have no
> >     email to reply to.
> >       (Didn't wanna spoil the reply format)
> >     >
> >     > Rouslan Placella wrote:
> >     >
> >     >> Hi Abhishek,
> >     >>
> >     >> have you got a live demo of this application that I could try?
> >     >
> >     > Yes, you can try it online at
> >     http://faceinbook.co.nr/flowork/home.html.
> >
> >     Out of curiosity, was the app a college project?
> >
> >     Also, I would like to hear from you about what you think are the
> >     shortcomings of your implementation. Would you do anything
> differently
> >     if you had to do it again from scratch?
> >
> >     >> From your email, I'm getting the feeling that you didn't fully
> >     >> understand where the different components of the system will
> >     reside...
> >     >
> >     > Yeah, I got it a bit wrong on the first go. But on reading the
> >     idea again I understood
> >       what exactly it is about.
> >     >
> >     >
> >     >> The server-side component of this system will not be for the
> users of
> >     >> phpMyAdmin or administrators of individual phpMyAdmin
> >     installations, it
> >     >> will, instead, be used by the members of the phpMyAdmin
> development
> >     >> team[0] to globally diagnose issues.
> >     >
> >     > I thought a client-side component for handling errors as well as
> >     one for
> >     diagnosing issues was suggested. But actually the suggestion was for
> a
> >     client-side
> >     component for sending errors to a server-side component with the data
> >     containing
> >     nothing that concerns the user about his/her privacy. Thus there is
> no
> >     need of encryption
> >     as you said, because the data contains no sensitive information.
> >     >
> >     >
> >     > And also as you wrote that there is no means to check if a request
> >     is valid,
> >     and hence no need for checking for authentication.
> >     >
> >     >
> >     > I would be happy to implement what you suggested about restricting
> >     the number
> >     of requests per IP to prevent the defacing of the server-system.
> Also I
> >     will be
> >     more than pleased to work on the server-side part to allow the
> >     phpMyAdmin developers
> >     to analyze and diagnose the errors.
> >     >
> >     >
> >     > Also to prevent the back-end from attacks such as DoS you
> >     suggested a global limit
> >     on the number of requests. It seems easy to implement but will play
> an
> >     important role
> >     against DoS attacks.
> >     >
> >     >
> >     > I will reply back after I work out a plan for the server-side
> >     interface
> >     and functioning for comments from you all.
> >     >
> >     >
> >     > Rouslan Placella wrote:
> >     >
> >     >> The wiki is pretty comprehensive on the matter. Do you have a more
> >     >> specific question?
> >     >
> >     > Yes, is there a place where I can upload a draft of my application
> >     for my mentor to review it? If not, is posting it to the mailing
> >     list fine?
> >
> >     Not that I know of. You can post to the mailing list, but your draft
> >     will be visible to other gsoc candidates.
> >
> >     Bye,
> >     Rouslan
>
>
>
>
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-- 
Abhishek Kandoi
First Year, Computer Science and Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
About Me : about.me/kandoiabhi
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