February 10, 2008
(Posted at 10:20 pm)Issues, issues and bugs - squashed!
This weekend, I was bogged down with concurrency related problems with ApnaBill.com - all of which were solved with the 62nd svn commit.
Different scenarios which we thought could have been possible
- User A and User B both attack the same coupon at same time
- User B tries to lock a coupon which was previously locked by User A
- User A tries to lock multiple coupons at time - knowingly!
- User A accidentally locks multiple coupons at a time
More problems arise specially when you have no control over the payment gateway pages (ie. when you are using a redirect to a payment gateway).
- When does the timeout occurs
- What happens if a timeout occurs
- What if the transaction was _killed_ midway
- How to deal with timeouts and locking/unlocking mechanism, etc
The newest addition to ApnaBill.com code in the payment gateway interaction arsenal
Luckily, almost all problems were solved for ApnaBill - All we expect from the user is to follow what’s shown on screen. Even otherwise, he should be good! For everything else - as they say - is the dear support staff 
Like that alert box? Try http://www.bioneural.net/2006/04/01/create-a-valid-css-alert-message/
Hmm, I think, we should profile all the user displayable messages before we launch. I want to make sure that all have the same tone.
PS: Me and Sandy have never brainstormed more on any other issue than concurrency handling.