January: Get idea for starting the Student Programming Project. Discuss ideas with others. Think of a name. Consider starting the group as a separate "club" under Mathsoc, but decide to found the club under the CSC instead. Mention idea to Suresh Naidu--President of CSC at the time
Last week of January: Set up an initial web page outlining my ideas for the project. Initial goalis to get as many people involved in everything as much as possible (i.e. it's more important for people to get involved and to learn something than to come out with the best possible final product). Because this is the first time, decide to go with one giant project for everyone to work on because it's simpler to manage (esp. when starting out) and it ensures that everyone involved gets a "consistent experience" (no single person gets stuck with a lame leader or something like that). Renew membership to CSC. Set up personal CSC account. E-mail exec@csclub.uwaterloo.ca suggesting idea for the Student Programming Project.
January 30: Approval received. Get Suresh to book a room in MC for meeting. E-mail sysadmin@csclub.uwaterloo.ca to get a CSC calum (the CSC server) account to store web page on.
January 31 & February 1: Receive spp account. Borrow CSC logo from their web page, convert to CorelDraw 8, and make a poster.
February 2 to 5: Photocopy lots of posters in Mathsoc office for five cents each. Initially try to operate "by the book." Go to Mathsoc office to get posters put up in math building (maximum of about four allowed on specific math & Davis Centre tack boards). Go to Engineering society to get permission to put up posters in engineering--put up about ten on various tack boards (esp. around e&ce department). Go to physics to look for places to put up posters--only Fed boards are available. Go to Feds to get permission to put up posters. Feds tell me to go to FedCopy (the Feds' photocopy store) to get permission there. FedCopy people have decided not to allow any posters up on Fed boards because of abuse of this privilege by others. Must use overcrowded public boards instead. (Note: St. Jerome's would also have been a good place to put posters.) Plan out an agenda for meeting.
February 6: No one in math have seen posters. Panic and put up an extra twenty or so posters in the morning in more prominent places--most of the posters disappear within a couple of hours. Have meeting. Take down posters afterwards.
February 7-12: Update web page, e-mail people who've e-mailed me saying they couldn't make it to the meeting. Robyn Landers in MFCF e-mails me mentioning that USENIX funds student research projects--not used at this time. Buy book on radiosity and do some reading. Mark Visser e-mails me suggesting a meeting to discuss design and stuff. Mark Visser talks to Professor Mann and convinces him to give a talk on radiosity. Meet Mark during the week to discuss project. Mark acts as liaison with Professor Mann. Get Suresh to book room in MC for the group meeting. E-mail everyone about the meeting time. Have group meeting--overlaps with various midterms so not many people show up. Club account on calum wasn't set up properly, so I can't access it. E-mail sysadmin to get it fixed up.
February 13-17: Update web page and move web page to the CSC server. Start work on Radiosity 101. Feb 16&17 are holidays for people in math. Professor Mann needs a special room in the Davis Centre for the presentation. On Feb 16, go to the Institute for Computer Research in DC to book the room. Tell Professor Mann directly about the arrangements. Only time possible is on Wednesday even though that interferes with various peoples' midterm schedules again. CSC makes and puts up some posters advertising the meeting. E-mail everyone about the talk.
February 18: Day of the talk. People only have one day warning about the talk. Look at advertising for the talk and notice that they advertise "tea and doughnaughts" for the talk. Panic and run around looking for doughnuts and pop. Find some (the closest Tim Horton's is at King and Columbia, but the Tim Horton's in DC will supply large orders of doughnuts if given a few days advance warning). Talk goes well but not many show up.
February 19-26: Update web page. Work more on Radiosity 101. Get Suresh to book another room for a meeting. E-mail everyone about the meeting. Have the meeting. Meeting overlaps with midterms again. Not many people show up. Work on design, but it doesn't go too well. Have discussions about what could be wrong etc. Change name of group from Student Programming Project (SPP) to the Student Software Development Group (SSDG).
February 27-March 4: Update web page. Work more on Radiosity 101. Look into CVS. CVS must be accessible through the math servers to be useful (not enough people have access to the CSC servers). CSC has special disk quota that's accessible from both the CSC server and the math servers--try to get some access to it. Try to book room in SLC, but all rooms have been booked out by some group. Wander around MC looking for good rooms to have meetings. Find some (Math tutorial centre is great but can't be booked. MC4044, MC4039, and MC4040 are decent if the tables are moved around to form a "conference" type table--perhaps the classrooms in the arts faculty are more conference style rather than classroom style like in MC). Go to NH3006 to personally book meetings in MC (can also phone up to book meetings). E-mail everyone about meeting. Have meeting.
March 4-12: Update web page. Book room for next meeting. Work more on Radiosity 101. Talk to an engineering professor to see if he can give a talk on C++--not possible. Try to find a certain CS professor who was recommended to me--the signs in the Davis Centre which tell you which room each prof has is several years out-of-date and I can't find that professor's room. Set-up a massive .forward file so that mail sent to the club account will be bounced off to all the members. Send out e-mail about next meeting. Discover at last minute that the .forward file was set up incorrectly, and no one found out about meeting (e-mail addresses in the .forward file must be FULL e-mail addresses and not relative ones--e.g. me@undergrad.math is wrong but me@undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca is good). Make the fix and send out the e-mail. Not too many people show up.
March 13-16: Update web page. Book room for next meeting. Work on a C++ talk. Give C++ talk to housemates to get a feel for how well it goes. Make overheads for the talk. Give the talk on C++ syntax (Note: talk was too long. Also, some people only wanted to learn about C++ objects and not about C. Next time divide the talk into two--first half on C and second half on C++).
March 17-19: Given access to the opt account to set up the CVS repository. It seems to be mainly used for installing new software and I can't figure out how to set up the repository with it. Mysteriously, someone does set up CVS software on the calum computers (previously this source control software wasn't). Have group meeting
March 20-April: Update web page. Set up CVS repository on my math account since I still don't have the special math/CSC quota. Work on CGI scripts to provide access to CVS source from the web page for engineers who don't have access to the repository on the math server (gets very messy--takes three days to figure it out but it works in the end) Ultimately, goal is to move repository to math/CSC disk area. There, math people can access repository using CVS like normal. CGI scripts will provide an alternate method for source retrieval while a special CSC mail account will be set up where people can e-mail new source into the repository--this system was never set up. No progress, too many projects and finals coming up. Web page mysteriously moves from csclub.uwaterloo.ca/u/spp to csclub.uwaterloo.ca/clubs/spp, so no one could figure out how to access the source to work on it. Decide to call an end to the group for the term.
May: Update web page.
October: Archived away the old main page, about page, and joining page. Decided not to bother finishing the docs on radiosity. Cleaned out various links and stuff. Archived away the cgi-script code that provided web access to the radiosity code.