newsstats/doc/TODO

                         NewsStats To-Do List
                         ====================

This is a list of planned bug fixes, improvements and enhancements for
NewsStats.

* General
  - Improve Documentation
    The documentation is rather sparse and could use some improvement.
  - Add a test suite
    There is currently no kind of test suite or regression tests. Something like
    that is badly needed.
  - separate directories (bin, config, ...)
  - make NewsStats installable in accordance with LFS and customary procedures,
    i.e. scripts to /usr/local/news/bin or /usr/lib/news/bin, configuration
    to /usr/local/news/etc or /etc/news and so on

* Additional features
  - Add hierarchy information (GroupInfo)
    NewsStats should be able to recognize invalid (i.e. officially not existing)
    newsgroups and - optionally - drop them from the list of groups. On the
    other hand, it should recognize existing, but empty groups and add them with
    a posting count of 0 to its list.
    NewsStats should be able to do that for any past month.
    It would be nice to make up a kind of hierarchy database from that with
    information like description, charter and moderation status. You should be
    able to get a list of valid groups for any given month (with a bit of slack
    for late creation and deletion), optionally including the previously
    mentioned information; and you should be able to get the history of any
    group.
  - Add other reports
    NewsStats should include some other kinds of reports (stats on used clients,
    on postings hosts/servers, ...)
  - Add tools for database management
    NewsStats should offer tools e.g. to inject postings into the 'raw' database,
    or to split databases.

* GroupInfo project
  - Create a hierarchy information database, containing information on each
    newsgroup, its creation and removal time, its tagline, charter and
    moderation status, including the moderator contact address.
  - Automatically update hierarchy information, e.g. by parsing control messages
    (with verification!).
  - Track changes in meta information (changes to tagline, charter, moderation
    status etc.)
  - Add tools to query for hierarchy information:
    - canonical list of newsgroups for any given time
    - generate list of changes for a time period
    - find newsgroups (including wildcards) and display their history

* Individual improvements
  + NewsStats.pm
    - Improve error handling when reading config
      Some syntax or content related checks would be in order.
      Some other tests - working database connection, valid database and table
      names - would be nice.

  + install/install.pl
    - Read current version from a file dropped and updated by installer
    - Add / enhance / test error handling
    - General tests and optimisations

  + feedlog.pl
    - Add / enhance / test error handling
    - General tests and optimisations

  + gatherstats.pl
    - Use hierarchy information (see GroupInfo above)
    - Add gathering of other stats (clients, hosts, ...)
    - better modularisation (code reuse for other reports!)
    - Add / enhance / test error handling
    - General tests and optimisations

  + groupstats.pl
    - better modularisation (code reuse for other reports!)
    - Add / enhance / test error handling
    - General tests and optimisations