updated README

README.md

@@ -1,25 +1,17 @@
-# CommonConsensus Documentation 
+# CommonConsensus v2 Documentation
 
 ## Getting up and running
 
-There are two components to **CommonConsensus**: the *game client*, a Flash "swif" file, `CommonConsenus.swf`, and the *web server*, a collection of Python files using the [Django](http://djangoproject.com) web application framework.  All of the data is stored in a [SQLite](http://sqlite.org) database, which takes the form of the text file `common_consensus.db`. 
+There are two components to **CommonConsensus**: the *game client*, a Flash "swif" file, `CommonConsenus.swf`, and the *web server*, a collection of Python files using the [Google App Engine] (http://appengine.google.com) web application framework.
 
 To run the server, you will need:
 
-  - Python 2.6+ (uses JSON library)
-  - Django 1.0+
-  - SQLite 3
+  - Python 2.7
+  - Google App Engine SDK
   - Git, optionally, if you want to push changes back to GitHub.
 
-On Debian-based machines, this should be as simple as issuing the command:
 
-    sudo apt-get install python-django python-sqlite sqlite3
-
-For other platforms, if you already have `python` and `python-setuptools` installed, you should be able to install `bzr` and `django` using `easy_install`.  
-
-One of the main features of the Django library is that it provides a way to access the database without writing SQL (Structured Query Language, pronnounced "sequel") commands.   This is known as the ActiveRecord pattern in computer programming: a table roughly corresponds to a class.  This means, for example, if you have a table named `Concepts`, Django will allow you to create a temporary new record by the conventional Python syntax for instantiating an object,  `c1 = Concepts(name='big cats')`.
-
-If you plan on modifying the *client* binary (students in Henry's class don't have to), you will need to compile [Adobe Flex code](http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/).  Flex is a combination of ActionScript 3 and MXML files.  These are propriatary formats but ActionScript 3 is based on the same [EMCAScript](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript) standard as JavaScript, and MXML files are simply XML structures used to describe visual objects and widgets. 
+If you plan on modifying the *client* binary (students in Henry's class don't have to), you will need to compile [Adobe Flex code](http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/).  Flex is a combination of ActionScript 3 and MXML files.  These are proprietary formats but ActionScript 3 is based on the same [EMCAScript](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECMAScript) standard as JavaScript, and MXML files are simply XML structures used to describe visual objects and widgets. 
 
 The project is built using Flash Bulder 4 (previous versions were called *Flex* Builder).  You can obtain a trial version of this beta Eclipse-based IDE from [here](http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashbuilder4/).
 
@@ -34,63 +26,33 @@ The project is built using Flash Bulder 4 (previous versions were called *Flex*
 This will create a folder in your current directory with two subdirectories:
 
      commonconsensus/
-                    /flexserver
-                    /game-client
+                    /server
+                    /client
 
 From within the root of the repository, you can always obtain the latest version (called the "head") of the source code by typing:
 
     git pull
 
 ### Configuring and running the server
 
-Move into the `flexserver` directory (e.g., `cd commonconsensus/flexserver`). Many of the files in this directory are standard Django^[For a good tutorial about how to build an app in Django, go [here](http://docs.djangoproject.com/en/dev/intro/tutorial01/)] scripts: `manage.py`, `settings.py`, and `urls.py`.
+First, you'll need to configure your own Google App Engine account, and pick a `APP-NAME`, that will be hosted on `http://APP-NAME.appspot.com`.  
 
-There is only one change you need to make before running the server, and this is in the `settings.py` file.  Open the file and change the value of the variable `BASE_DIR` to the full path to the **CommonConsensus**\ server directory. If you are on a Linux environment, this will be the path returned by the command `pwd` when executed in the same directory as the settings file.
+Move into the `server` directory (e.g., `cd commonconsensus/server`).  Edit the `app.yaml` file so it contains your `APP-NAME`.
 
-After you have updated the `BASE_DIR` variable, you can launch the Python server by typing:
+You should be able to launch the Python server by running
 
-    python manage.py runserver
+    python dev_appserver.py .
 
 If you are configured correctly, this will allow your files to be served on the local machine.  Check it out by opening this page in your browser:
 
-\indent \url{http://localhost:8000}
+\indent \url{http://localhost:8080}
 
 You can login to the game with the username and password `test`, which are pre-populated in this development version of the client.
 
-If you want others to be able to access your site or want to host on another port^[For example, if you host on the port `80`, the default HTTP port, then you do not have to specify the port in the URL] or be able to access it from a remote server, you will have to specify the host after the `runserver` command.  For example:
-
-    python manage.py runserver xoth.media.mit.edu:80
-
-Will launch **CommonConsensus**\ on `http://xoth.media.mit.edu`.   **Note:** if you run **CommonConsensus** on a port different from 8000 or on a server other than your local machine, you will need to specify this in the client by editing the `BASE_URL` variable in the file `game-client/commonconsensus/util/Settings.as` and recompiling.
-
+You can upload the files to Google App Engine to have them hosted on Google's infrastructure.  You can do this by opening the App Engine GUI, adding "an existing project" to the list by selecting CommonConsensus' `server` directory, and then clicking **Deploy**.
 
 # Modifying CommonConsensus
 
-## Changing the data
-
-Add `admin/` onto the the server and open it in your browser. For example, with the default configuration, you'll want to go to:
-
-[http://localhost:8000/admin](http://localhost:8000/admin)
-
-Login with **test** for both username and password.  
-
-
-## Editing the server
-
-While `DEBUG=True` in `flexserver/settings.py`, Django will allow you to edit the web application *while* the server is running---it will automatically reload the changed document.
-
-The Django server log, which is printed to the terminal running Django, contains valuable debugging information.  Whenever a method in `flexserver/server/views.py` has been called, then it's name will be printed to the terminal along with its response code.  Some common respobnse codes are:
-
-   - 200:  Successfully returned request
-   - 404:  Document not found
-   - 500:  Error within the method
-
-Any errors in the python code will result in the opaque 500 error, which alone is not very helpful when you are debugging the project.  In Debug settings, Django ouputs very helpful information on the error page that can be used to diagonse the problem.  Here are some debugging strategies:
-
-   - Use the python `print` command to print variables and status messages to the terminal.  This does not work if there was an error *before* your print statement is evaluated.
-   - Insert `assert False` into your code to manually trigger a Django debug page, along with diagonstic information.
-   - Put `import pdb; pdb.set_trace()` at the top of your method to have python *step through* each line of method and print the response.  This is very effective, but requires active participation (you type 'n' to the terminal to advance evaluation to the next line, or *Return* to repeat the last command).
-
 
 ## Editing the client
 
@@ -101,19 +63,6 @@ Once you have it installed, click *File* $\rightarrow$ *Import* $\rightarrow$ *F
 Alternatively, if you have the `mxmlc` program installed (it will install with Flex Builder, but will not be in your default path), you can run the Makefile script to compile the Flash `swf` by typing `make`. 
 
 
-## Editing the data directly from the database
-
-You can open the SQLite3 database with the following command:
-
-    sqlite3 common_consenus.db
-
-To browse the schema, then type
-
-    .schema
-
-To see the structure for all of the tables.   You can execute arbitrary SQL commands from the interface.  You can type on multiple lines, and SQLite will wait until it sees a `;` or a system command.  Type `.help` to see all system commands; to exit SQLite, type: `.quit`.
-
-
 # Future Directions
 
 Several promising directions came out of a discussion with folks at SLB.