GSoC 2012: Improve SilverStripe Payment module

 

Name: Dao Duy Duc Duong (Ryan Dao)

Country: Singapore

Email: daoduyducduong@gmail.com

             ducduong@comp.nus.edu.sg

Skype: duong_d3

SilverStripe forum name: ryandao

Phone:      +6583754308

 

About me

I am a second-year Computer Science student from the National University of Singapore specializing in Software Engineering. I was born and grew up in Vietnam before coming to Singapore for undergraduate study. Despite the short 2 years of university life, I have been fully exposed to industry-standard software development. I am proficient in software engineering practices and have extensive experience developing web (Java, PHP, Javascript, MySQL) and mobile (Android, iOS) applications.

 

My open source contribution

I have been a strong supporter for the open source community but not yet a contributor. However, I have worked extensively with Drupal for a project called Teamie (refer to below details), but due to the corporate environment, I was not allowed to contribute my code. Therefore, I am very looking forward to GSOC when I can make my very first meaningful open source contribution.

 

My SilverStripe experience

This will the first time I work with SilverStripe. I have gone through the code base and built a few websites to get myself familiar with the framework. I have also been involved in GSOC discussions on SilverStripe Google group and got to know the community and GSOC mentors. With my experience in web technologies and Content Management System, and I am confident that I can be a good SilverStripe developer.

 

My PHP, MySQL, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript experience

I have been developing websites and web applications using the above technologies for almost 4 years. Some major projects I have done include:

á      An online collaboration platform for teachers and students called Teamie: www.theteamie.com

á      A Facebook application called Status Time Capsule: https://github.com/ryandao/Facebook-Status-Time-Capsule

á      An HTML5 application called Carpool@NUS written in HTML5 and Javascript with RESTful PHP backend. The app has been taken down but its code can be downloaded here http://ryandao.net/code/carpool.zip

á      A mobile app called Cab.SG written completely in Javascript and wrapped as an Android apk using PhoneGap: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cabsg

 

Among the above projects, Teamie is the biggest one and the one provided me with the most learning experience. Teamie was built on Drupal, but some of the Drupal functionality did not fit into the project specifications. Therefore, I was required to review and customize Drupal core and contributed modules to make them more suitable for the platform. It helped me gain extensive experience in PHP and Content Management System (CMS) as well as experience in working with large code bases.

 

My summer plan that may interfere with GSOC

I only plan to go on a one-week vacation some time around the end of June. Other than that, I am fully committed to working on GSOC. Please refer to the detailed timeline in the project section below.

 

Blogs, websites, or other resources

My Curriculum Vitae provides the most information about my background and experience. I have only one public blog which I wrote during the time I took a course called CS3216: Software Development in Evolving Platform, which is considered one of the best and toughest Software Engineering courses offered by my university. More information about the course can be found here.

 

Some of my code can be found on my GitHub: https://github.com/ryandao

 

Proposed project: Improve SilverStripe payment module

 

Abstract

The Payment module is an essential part of many SilverStripe e-commerce solutions. It is a powerful stand-alone module, which can be incorporated to SilverStripe websites to enable processing payment for any DataObject. However, despite being widely used, the Payment module is currently facing some limitations such as the lack of unit testing and unstandardized API. This project aims to address those limitations.

 

Project details

The project comprises of the following main objectives:

 

- API and structure improvement: The very first task of the project is to migrate the module to SilverStripe 3.0 with a new structure. Each payment gateway provider will be put in a separate submodule. This will reduce the number of unnecessary classes and keep the functionality of the core Payment module minimal. SilverStripe developers will then be able to install the specific payment gateways for their websites. The gateway provider objects will be injected to the Payment object using the Dependency Injection pattern when a payment is about to be processed. The Payment class API will be improved to support such pattern.

 

- Comprehensive payment gateway testing: Testing is utmost important when it comes to ecommerce payment. However, most of the payment gateways in the Payment module currently do not apply any testing strategy to verify working code. This project provides a comprehensive testing framework that enables easy testing of the payment gateways. The framework structure is as followed:

á      Each gateway submodule has three implementations: Production, APITesting, and UnitTesting. Production handles real transactions used in production deployment; APITesting is used for manual test environment (like the Paypal Sanbox) to test the remote connection and API; UnitTesting mimics the HTTP responses/requests of the remote providers to provide unit testing capability.

á      Using the Dependency Injection pattern, each implementation can be injected to the Payment object when it comes to handling payment. The Payment object does not need to know which implementation is being used, which leads to low code coupling and high cohesion.

 

- More payment gateway: More payment gateways like Google Checkout, Amazon Payments, Dwolla, etc will be added. Google Checkout is the minimal deliverable; other gateways will be implemented if time allows.

 

- Recurring payment improvement: If a gateway supports recurring payment (e.g. Paypal), there will be an implementation class in the gateway submodule to handle the feature. It will be dependency-injected to RecurringPayment, which is a subclass of Payment, in the Payment module when the web admin enables recurring payment. The current RecurringPayment API will be revamped to handle errors, reminders, and notifications more effectively.

 

Timeline

My final examinations will take place from April 23th to May 5th. I will start working on the project right after the exams on May 7th. The following timeline provides a rough guideline on how the project will be done.

 

May 7th – 13th: Familiarize myself with the code and the community; discuss implementation plan with the mentors.

 

May 14th – 20th: Refactor the Payment API and separate the gateway providers to submodules. Ensure that all gateways work after separation.

 

May 21th – June 3rd:  Study all payment gatewaysÕ API and test environments. Implement a generic testing framework for all gateways.

 

June 4th – 17th: Implement specific testing strategies for each gateway, which includes setting up API test environments and unit testing.

 

June 18th – June 24th: Ensure all test cases work correctly and all aspects of the payment gateway handlers are tested thoroughly.

 

June 25th – July 8th: Integrate Google Checkout and other gateways.

 

July 9th – July 22nd: Refactor the recurring payment API. Implement Paypal recurring payment.

 

July 23rd – July 29th:  Do more testing and refactoring. Make sure all payment gateways work perfectly.

 

July 30st – August 13th: Further refine tests and documentation for the whole project.

 

The above is a rough estimation of the timeline. It is subjected to change as I go along. I am going to spend at least 30 hours per week on the project. However, I will have a one-week vacation some time near the end of June. August 13th is the GSOCÕs suggested Òpencil downÓ date, but I will continue working until August 22nd if any aspect of the project still needs to be done.

 

Are you okay for us to do an interview with you before, during, and after GSOC, so we can write about what youÕre doing and thank you on our silverstripe.org blog?

Yes, I am willing to give out any information if requested by SilverStripe.

 

PHP Coding Test

URL: http://ryandao.net/ss-coding-test/

Code: http://ryandao.net/code/ss-coding-test.zip

PHPMyAdmin: http://web321.webfaction.com/static/phpMyAdmin/ (username and password are the same with the database settings in /includes/db.php)