Point Of Sale

CSC pop crediting / point of sale project.

Implementation details

Data storage

• sqlite db with Kerberos taking care of permissions?
  • Pro: easy
  • Con: potential for concurrency fail on NFS http://www.sqlite.org/faq.html#q5
• web service that runs on Caffeine and stores things in a MySQL db?
  • Pro: allows for web UI admin. Python makes such a service easy to code.
  • Con: security, complexity, dependence on Caffeine and MySQL.

Administration interface

• hammer into ceo, or have a ncurses based standalone app on office terminals that talks to back-end db

Development milestones

Mile 1

Enroll cards and associate them with users. Scan a card, get back userid.

Mile 2

Add ability to transfer funds to a user's account. Scan a card, display a balance, show a large button that decrements balance when pressed.

Mile 3

Scan a card, display a balance, show buttons representing purchase options, decrements balance correctly based on price of button pressed. Polished UI and sane timeout values.

Ready for (at your own risk) member use.

Mile 4

Fix bugs and security flaws. Implement any nice-to-have features. Ready for general member use.

• Barcode reader for headless scan&go purchase
• Logging for purchasing metrics and bug tracking