Preserved Topic: Open Call for New Project!

I'm looking hot Perl gurus who are interested in working on a new stats-analyzation package.

Yes, there are already a ton of packages out there, but frankly, I think they all suck. If they're not disorganized, then they're ugly. If they're not ugly, then they're incomplete. If they're not incomplete, they're confusing.

What I have in mind is a package that's geared for the end user -- for someone with moderate skills installing scripts for a personal Web site. Think something like Greymatter or Movable Type 2 or a number of forum packages out there. With an attractive, Web interface for navigation and configuration.

It wouldn't just create a long, single page of "top tens" like most stats software. It would create a multi-page report, each section well organized and easy to understand. For example, referrers would have their own page and you could choose to have them created a number of ways: listed by number of accesses per referrer, grouped by what pages on your site they're linking to, or grouped by domain. And each referrer would be hyperlinked so you can check them out.

And you don't have to be a genius to set it up. Upload the files in the right places, then point your browser to the setup page, where you enter the path to your log files in a field. You can select whether the log files are rotated daily, weekly or monthly. (I'm not saying the program would rotate them for you; you just tell it how the logs are already being created by your host.) The configuration page would even help you set up a cron job to automatically parse the logs at chosen intervals. No difficult command-line goop.

The key here is easy configuration. And it would look good, too!

Now, you guys know I'm not a programmer, but I'm not just asking for someone else to do the work for me. Before I left my job in California, it had evolved from graphic designer to project manager. One of our biggest projects was creating a system that allowed members of a certain Web site to create their own small Web sites through a Web interface. It allowed users to choose skins, enter content, upload images to be placed on pages, etc. I didn't write the scripts, but I designed how it would work and made sure things stayed consistent throughout. I worked closely with the programmer; I outlined what the system should do, he told me what was possible, and together we refined the interface and made it more user friendly.

I'm sure one or two of you would love to get involved in something like this. There's a lot of talent in here that's just aching for a great, high-profile project.

sounds interesting...
then, I don't know much about perl,
and there's those finals till the mid of April...

but after that, and using php... maybe.

It does indeed sound like a fun project. It would also be personally useful, but there's just no time right now. On my site I use Webalizer which I think provides awesome statistics broken down by month. The only thing I wish it had was daily and maybe weekly stats in addition to the monthly stats.

Good luck though. I'd love to help test it once you get started

-jiblet

Well, I'm going to throw together an outline for the script's functionality. I'd appreciate the involvement of anyone who can make some time for the project.

I really think a friendly stats package would be quite popular. It just seems to me that most of the ones out there are geared more for development types -- the technically minded.

That's why I love packages like Movable Type and MojoMail. They're easy to set up, configure and understand, and they get you back to creating your content instead of making you spend time installing and troubleshooting. That's the sort of thing I would love to see in a nice stats package.

I wouldn't mind hearing a few thoughts from our server gurus, concerning the speed of the various kinds of scripting languages we might be using. I'm pretty sure that perl might just be the best option for mangling large tex logfiles, but it doesn't hurt to think about this. The stats package I use for OZONE at http://www.ozones.com/server-stats/ was written by my freind drow, and they liked it so much they implemented it across the board for all 10,000 clients. Some of the bigger sites like mine, it still takes some significant time to crunch through my multi-MB logfiles. The earlier versions (Kobold and Goblyn) had to be rewritten from scratch, they had the right functions but were too slow to finish, hogging an entire server for most of the day!

Your pal, -doc-

I am checking out drow's website again, I had forgotten what a cool person he is! If you didn't click that link above, do so now. I love interesting and (possibly) insane people!

Your pal, -doc-

I would be up for working on this project as well, but just 6 weeks until finals. I am really not going to have time to post on the BB let alone work on side projects. Given 7 weeks into the future I might be able to put some time into this for you.

Oh, great. Now I've got the click. And just when that other thing cleared up.

Well, you guys mull it over. I'll let you argue about what's the best approach for keeping things fast and powerful. In the meantime, I'll try to outline the idea like I said.

Hey, maybe this would be something good to offer on the Gurus Network. I haven't contributed anything yet.