2010-01-25

Perl on Google App Engine

I recently started using Google App Engine and I have to say that I like it. The only thing I would change is support for other languages, namely Perl. I don't mind learning Python, but since I already know Perl it would be nice to be able to use it.

If anyone else is interested in using Perl on Google App Engine please Star issue #34 (do not reply to the issue with a "me too" or "+1", it just clutters everyone's inbox). You'll have to be logged into your Google account to do this.

There is also a Google Code project working on getting Perl ready for use in Google App Engine.

2010-01-13

Archiving Ideas

Project management with Google Wave

Project Ideas can be archived with an "Archived" tag or if there are too many tags in use a "Completed" tag will work. This will keep the Ideas search smaller and limited to current Ideas.
Current Ideas search:
tag:Project Name, Idea, -Completed
Old Ideas search:
tag:Project Name, Idea, Completed

2010-01-09

Separating Ideas and Tasks

To separate Ideas from Tasks just use an "Idea" tag or a "Task" tag. Project tasks would be sorted with:
tag:Project Name, Task, -Completed
Project ideas would be sorted with:
tag:Project Name, Idea
Project management with Google Wave

Finding unread tasks

To find all unread tasks (eg: all unread waves) use the following search:
is:unread

2010-01-04

2010-01-02

Using Google Wave for basic project management

I recently got an account on Google Wave and I think it has promise. What interests me most is the possibility for project management. Previously I was using ThinkingRock which is a great application and has tons of features. However I didn't use most of the features and I wanted to share projects, to-do lists, etc with other people. I then started to move my projects to Google Tasks with hopes that it would allow sharing similar to Google Calendar's sharing.

When I got my Google Wave account I was glad to find out it has the ability to selectively share a wave with another person (isn't that the whole point behind Google Wave?). I looked for some sort of project management or to-do plugin but I realized that Google Wave provides everything I need without plugins. Granted I'm using a very small subset of project management ideas but it works well enough for me.

My setup is as follows:
  • New projects are identified by a specific tag
  • Each task is represented by a wave
    • New tasks are given tags according to which projects they belong to
    • Users can be added to tasks, unfortunately they can't be removed (yet)
    • Users can update tasks with new info
    • When a task is completed a "Completed" tag is added to the task
  • Tasks can be sorted by project using Saved Searches
    • To search for all open tasks in a project use the search
      tag:Project Name -tag:Completed
      or just
      tag:Project Name, -Completed
    • To search for all completed tasks in a project use the search
      tag:Project Name, Completed
That's all I'm using Google Wave for right now. I'll provide updates for any new processes I come up with.

Some notes about searching:
  • There are several search terms to choose from.
  • The only operator I have found is '-' used to negate a term; I have not found other operators such as 'and' or 'or' in the documentation.

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