From: Mike Brown <mike@skew.org>
To: consultants@fourthought.com
Subject: Re: [Consultants]checkin: Buyer Base
Date: Sun, 20 Jan 2002 02:33:43 -0700

> > I kinda liked how it was where you had read only
> > access if you didn't have a session.
>
> I think both approaches should be demonstrated, maybe in different
> demos.  Maybe we add read-only mode to Guest Book or some such.

What I have in mind for Buyer Base is the Amazon model. We need to
differentiate between no session at all (which happens if the client isn't
returning cookies), an anonymous session (uses cookies and does have an id,
just not tied to a repo user), and a repo user's session. Then you can have
a section of the site that is usable by anyone: a browsable catalog.. if
there is an anonymous or logged-in session, you can build up a cart. If you
are logged in, you can submit your cart as an order.

I think we were heading in this direction, but we need to account for all
possible circumstances and how every page and link is affected in order to
make it be an effective demo -- I mean if I can easily break things just by
having my browser's clock set a few minutes off from the server's clock, for
example, then I'd rather scale it back to where it is right now, with
everything working correctly using only logged in sessions. Now that that is
squared away, I am not opposed to taking it further.


