Designed and implemented the database, now I'm testing it. Looks good so far. I'm writing the python script that will ultimately handle the flow I described in my last post, which is arguably the "meat" of the project. The hardest part to implement will be the matching of landmarks to valid locations -- I have no idea what kind of input we'll actually get from users. It's an open question in that respect, to my knowledge nobody has done something like this before. This all points to a lot of tweaking that will have to be done in the first few weeks after deployment. Because of this, I'm designing all of the relevant software to be easier for me to change remotely (I'm using logmein so I'll be able to access the computer from America, assuming that there is sufficient internet access).
That being said, the question of whether the landmark system will produce valid results or not is an interesting question; I think it will provide valuable research data. I'm realizing that the flowchart I described in the last post has too many possibilities for syntactic failure, which conflicts with an implicit design goal--to make it so first time users can, with absolutely minimal instruction, use it successfully and want to use it again. So I've made some changes that make it easier to use, with the trade off that it may require more overall text messages back and forth to complete each session. I'll post an updated graphic soon; right now my priority is getting the system running and as stable as possible before the 30th.
I also just realized that my previous post had the subject line "5/12" when it was supposed to be "6/12". I'll not edit it, it will stand forevermore as a monument to the dangers of not knowing what month it is.
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