LPM: cgi script

[Frank Price]

On Tue, Apr 18, 2000 at 05:28:11PM -0400, Joe Alexander wrote:
> I was told by Prof. Marek of UK that you might be able to help me with a
> particular project I want to pull off. The trouble is, I don't have
> necessary programming expertise.
> 
> First, could you tell me exactly what your org does, and what type of people
> comprise this org. Just curious.

Well, it's hard to speak for the list, but essentially we're a users
group, and what we use is the Perl language.  So we discuss
programming and other perl issues on this list and also via a monthly
meeting.  As for composition, it's a mix of students, professionals,
and probably some who are both/neither.  Pretty safe, eh?-)

> If you can help, or are interested, here's an explanation of what I need:

I know some of us do consulting.  If you are interested in someone to
write this for you, that's probably your best bet.  If you just want
to talk about ideas and ways of doing things and what makes perl good
for them, that seems appropriate for the list.

> 
> The idea is in three parts. First, collect from a finite number of
> respondents the answers to 40-question multiple-choice survey, and store the
> results in a database on a server. The second part is to provide the same
> 40-question survey (over the net) to an unlimited number of respondents.
> Thirdly, the results (by each question) then are automatically compared to
> the pre-existing results, and the program generates the best match between
> the live respondent and the pre-existing results. This match is then shown
> to the live respondent: “Your answers most closely match so-and-so’s
> answers.”

It doesn't sound too tough.  Probably the hardest part will be
determining conceptually what constitutes a "best" match.  If you have
a good idea about that, implementing it might not be too hard.  That's
easy to say from here :-)

-Frank.
-- 
Frank Price | fprice at mis.net | www.sxse.org/fprice/
GPG key: www.sxse.org/fprice/gpg.asc | E Pluribus Unix