Develop a spec for a Python/Google App Engine application

I have a running desktop application that generates web pages. At present these generated pages run exclusively on the client-side and contain Html, CSS, JavaScript and JQuery. The generated pages present the units of an interactive course of study to an end-user. Each unit contains a script of Questions, Responses and Actions (JS expressions). Each of these three are **nodes** in a dialogue tree that makes up the script for a Unit of study. Each node is a JS object. JS variables keep track of a student's progress through a Unit, recording his or her trail of chosen responses and the impact (via executed expressions) these choices have had on variable values. What I need to take this application further is to add a server-side and I have decided that this must be written for the Google App Engine (GAE). I have recently extended the above desktop application to include a set of tables describing a distance education school. The tables include Institutions, Institution Directors, Courses, Course Supervisors, Course Tutors, Course Units, Unit Authors, Students and Student Results. All but the last named are to be uploaded from the desktop app to the Google App Engine. The above is a brief summary of the application concept. The job for this first stage of the work is to **create a detailed spec.** that will guide the later stages. **For a complete description of the requiresd work read further.** It follows that anyone attempting the above work must be a Python programmer of some capacity and also be experienced in writing GAE applications. A considerable ability to communicate in English will be also necessary. The first test of that ability is this present definition of the task; if you do not understand it, please give up now. As you will understand, I do not know for sure if XML can be used in the way described above. What I do know is that my desktop app can readily read and write it. Alternatives such as the JSON format are not practical since the desktop app is currently unable to read/write in it. ## Deliverables I have a running desktop application that generates web pages. At present these generated pages run exclusively on the client-side and contain Html, CSS, JavaScript and JQuery. The generated pages present the units of an interactive course of study to an end-user. Each unit contains a script of Questions, Responses and Actions (JS expressions). Each of these three are nodes in a dialogue tree that makes up the script for a Unit of study. Each node is a JS object. JS variables keep track of a student's progress through a Unit, recording his or her trail of chosen responses and the impact (via executed expressions) these choices have had on variable values. What I need to take this application further is to add a server-side and I have decided that this must be written for the Google App Engine (GAE). I have recently extended the above desktop application to include a set of tables describing a distance education school. The tables include Institutions, Institution Directors, Courses, Course Supervisors, Course Tutors, Course Units, Unit Authors, Students and Student Results. All but the last named are to be uploaded from the desktop app to the Google App Engine. The desktop app can output valid XML and this, as far as I presently know, has to be the means by which the desktop data tables are uploaded to GAE. I am aware that GAE is not relational and that the tables to be uploaded will need to comply with its requirments. But I believe a mapping from the strictly relational structure in the desktop app to these GAE requirements can be devised. I can supply the data schema on the desktop side. But I note that this schema is presently incomplete when it comes to exactly describing the Student Records. At run time on the web, students' interactions with each Question, that is what Response(s) they choose and what numbers or strings of text they enter, must be written to one or more tables that together make up the Student Results. Then the desktop app must be able to access and download these results, writing them to its relational tables. Because it holds a complete record of the data defining a dialogue, such as the text of Questions and Responses, the desktop app is able to make sense of this recovered data. Thus, on the server, student 12322 may answer Question 4345 with Responses 2 and 3 and enter the value 42 in an input form. But, when this is downloaded and written to the desktop app, these numbers will enable a matching back to the full version of the dialogue. In summary, the desktop app uploads the web pages and the data tables for a school. As courses, students etc are added or changed there is a one-way synch from the desktop to these GAE tables. The GAE application serves the web pages that create a dialogue with a student. It stores away student responses etc and, on request, downloads them to the desktop app, doing a one-way synch in the reverse direction. The desktop app does any and all reporting of student results. The GAE part of the total solution is to hold skeletal records which are sufficient to authorize access on the part of the different users and to save student and tutor responses. Thus a student registered as enrolled in a given Course would be granted access to the Units comprising that Course, and a Tutor for a given Course would be granted access to enter notes, comments and marks relating to that Course, via the desktop app. But the GAE tables are not accessed directly, as in say a conventional Django app. The above is a brief summary of the application concept. The job for this first stage of the work is to create a detailed spec. that will guide the later stages. Any applicant must be capable of doing the later stages of the work themselves. It follows that anyone attempting the above work must be a Python programmer of some capacity and also be experienced in writing GAE applications. A considerable ability to communicate in English will be also necessary. The first test of that ability is this present definition of the task; if you do not understand it, please give up now. As you will understand, I do not know for sure if XML can be used in the way described above. What I do know is that my desktop app can readily read and write it. Alternatives such as the JSON format are not practical since the desktop app is currently unable to read/write in it.