NCIPServer: better_abstraction branch merged into master

The Evergreen ILS driver for the NCIPServer software reached a milestone with the merge of the better_abstraction working branch into the master NCIPServer repository. (NCIPServer is a NCIP version 2.02 responder for processing ILL transactions.) This merge comes after many months of production use with the Massachusetts Commonwealth Catalog.

While this merge marks the end of development on the better_abstraction branch, it is not the end of the road for NCIPServer development with Evergreen. For one thing, NCIPServer needs documentation. The README is just a placeholder. Jason Boyer of Indiana is working on improvements to the request item response messages. Also, we've given up on any pretense of compatibility with Koha, so there is code to be deleted and examples to be updated. Finally, it would be nice to have an installation method better than just copying files into place and manually editing the configuration.

It is recommended that those using the better_abstraction branch in production switch to the master branch of the main repository.

Parameters Spreadsheet Utility Updated

Coincident with the move to github, the parameters.pl program in my Evergreen utilities suite received a code update. It now lists all of the fields from the circulation and hold matrix matchpoint tables. Prior to this update, it only output those fields used by MVLC. This change makes the script more useful to other Evergreen sites.

Evergreen Utilities Moved to github

I have made a clone of my Evergreen ILS Perl and SQL utilities on github. The new location is https://github.com/Dyrcona/evergreen_utilities. If you have been using these utilities, you may want to change your remotes to the new location.

I can't say how long the repository will be available at the old location, but as far as I know there are no plans to take it down any time soon.

I will have another post ready shortly that explains a recent update to the utility that builds a spreadsheet of your circulation and holds parameters.

JSONPrefs has a new home

If you have been using my JSONPrefs Perl module in your scripts, you should know that it now has a new home on Github.

It now resides at https://github.com/Dyrcona/JSONPrefs.

It will remain up at the old location, http://git.mvlcstaff.org/?p=jason/JSONPrefs.git;a=summary, for an undetermined amount of time.

Please note that the history of the master branch was completely rewritten for the new home. Everything was squashed into one commit with all previous history obliterated. Its requirements were also adjusted slightly. It now depends on the JSON Perl module and not JSON::XS.

Maybe JSONPrefs will make it to CPAN one day, but I really doubt it.