Technical Summary
Production Data Infrastructure System for Softie Parachutes
Description
This app displays the 'In Stock' list of parachute systems and provides tools to easily create and manage stock listings. The data for the list is stored in a database. The layout is responsive to screen width such that mobile devices have a simplified list with more details available by clicking on each listing and devices with wider screens display a table. The features and functionality to manage stock listings are not accessable with the guest login. There is a 'API-like' interface which can be used to port the stock listing contents to other sites. Other features are in development.
Dev Ops
In managing the app development project, I generated a timeline, milestones, goals, and desired feature lists. I then broke these down into coding units to develop. Each of these features passed through an iterative improvement process of coding and testing.
HTML, CSS, and PHP for UI/UX
The app is a web app and is viewed through HTML pages generated using PHP code. Styling is organized into three tiers of CSS files. There is a global theme for my entire website. There is an app specific theme that specifies the styling applicable to multiple pages within the app. Individual pages have a CSS file for any styling intended for that page. The PHP code is used to include the header and footer information and to perform various user authentication checks (see 'Cybersecurity' section below). The app is responsive to mobile and desktop screen widths. The navigation menu is intuitive and snappy.
SQL and Database Admin (Data Engineering / Architecture)
I used SQL extensively throughout the app development process to set up the database tables. The various pages in the app use prepared SQL statements to query the database to generate page content. The database admin tasks associated with designing, implementing and querying the database were certainly some of my favorite parts of the app development process.
The database contains tables for users, pages, sessions, stock listings, and options.
Statistics and Data Science
I eagerly look forward to posing questions and generating answers that involve math calculations.
Cybersecurity
Data security is an important component of any data management system. The login system authenticates users. User passwords are stored in encrypted form (not plaintext). Sessions are created and logged for each login. The connection between the database server and the client's device (mobile phone or computer) is encrypted via the HTTPS protocol so that data transer cannot be easily read while in transit. All database queries are performed via prepared SQL statements and all form inputs are sanitized before they are used to add robustness against SQL injection attacks. The navigation menu is generated based on the pages that the user's role is granted access to.
Colors and Model Specs
There are tables in the database with specifications for each of the options (Softie models, Canopy types, Fabric colors, Trim colors, Harness colors, and Harness types). These are used to populate the drop down lists used to create and edit stock listing items and used to create the input pattern requirements so that bogus entries and typos do not get saved to the database by mistake.
Last Updated: 2024-02-19