Fresh brew of Mocha includes textbook prices
Sam Byker
Issue date: 1/25/08 Section: Campus News
The team behind Mocha, Brown's student-run alternative to the University's online course catalog, released an updated version of the Web site yesterday, simplifying the software's interface and integrating information on courses' required textbooks and their prices from the Brown Bookstore and Amazon.com.
Launched in January 2006 by five computer science concentrators who developed it over winter break as a pet project, Mocha quickly gained popularity as a user-friendly alternative to the Brown Online Course Announcement. In March 2007, developers quickly adapted the software to function with the University's ill-received Banner Catalog and Schedule.
Reached Thursday night in the Center for Information Technology, Colin Gordon '08 and Andres Castroviejo '09 told The Herald the latest changes have been in the works for several months.
"We started actually thinking about it seriously pretty much as soon as we figured out the books were listed online, and then hacked up a quick prototype last semester and cleaned it up last week," Gordon said.
He and Douglas, along with Tim O'Donnell '09, Dave Hirshberg '08 and Aaron Myers '07 GS, make up the student team that has maintained Mocha since four of its founders graduated last spring.
The team integrated textbook assignments using a method similar to that which connects Mocha to Banner: a program known as a "Web crawler" browses the Bookstore's Web site and Amazon.com for course reading lists and prices for new and used volumes. That information is then stored on Mocha's own server in the Department of Computer Science and displayed below scheduling information for some courses.
In addition, Mocha's developers say they've made course listings easier to read and fixed several bugs in the site's calendar.
The updates come amid continued discussions aimed at integrating Mocha into Banner, which have been taking place between student developers and University officials for several months.
Launched in January 2006 by five computer science concentrators who developed it over winter break as a pet project, Mocha quickly gained popularity as a user-friendly alternative to the Brown Online Course Announcement. In March 2007, developers quickly adapted the software to function with the University's ill-received Banner Catalog and Schedule.
Reached Thursday night in the Center for Information Technology, Colin Gordon '08 and Andres Castroviejo '09 told The Herald the latest changes have been in the works for several months.
"We started actually thinking about it seriously pretty much as soon as we figured out the books were listed online, and then hacked up a quick prototype last semester and cleaned it up last week," Gordon said.
He and Douglas, along with Tim O'Donnell '09, Dave Hirshberg '08 and Aaron Myers '07 GS, make up the student team that has maintained Mocha since four of its founders graduated last spring.
The team integrated textbook assignments using a method similar to that which connects Mocha to Banner: a program known as a "Web crawler" browses the Bookstore's Web site and Amazon.com for course reading lists and prices for new and used volumes. That information is then stored on Mocha's own server in the Department of Computer Science and displayed below scheduling information for some courses.
In addition, Mocha's developers say they've made course listings easier to read and fixed several bugs in the site's calendar.
The updates come amid continued discussions aimed at integrating Mocha into Banner, which have been taking place between student developers and University officials for several months.