[EuroPython] Position on registration software

[Jacob Hallén]

These are my thoughts on the software that handles registration and 
track/presentation management. There are 3 different aspects that I think are 
important.

1. Software functionality

From an attendee perspective, the functionality of last years 
registration/presentation procedures were not too bad. I think they can be 
improved on, but mostly they worked decently well.

From an administrators perspective, they were a nightmare. Everey modification 
to user data took several minutes. It took extra development to get a decent 
list of attendees, and even with that list things were very cumbersome. The 
system lacks searches and report facilities that are essential to the main 
attendee admin as well as the accomodation person and would be very useful to 
others as well.

Extracting data from the system to make a programme, a list of T-shirt orders, 
or planning the schedule requires non-trivial programming for each new task.

2. Devloping the software

There has to be a committed group of people who develop the software for the 
new site. While Joachim did a very good job last year, there was only one of 
him, and he was unable to cope with the needs. When we sent out pleas for 
help in the Plone community, we heard nothing back. This gives me little 
confidence in continuing with Plone.
 
3. Using the software

Laura and I will be the main users of the registration software. We need to be 
able to trust the solution getting set up.

Conclusion

We have built a solution based on CAPS that we feel does what we want. If 
someone wants to propose something different, there should be a solid, well 
thought out proposal with people ready to back it with a sufficient amount of 
work.

Jacob