Complicated email parsing

[NewGirl]

Hi All,

I'm getting ready to hire out a very intricate email parsing and wanted to get some advice before I start. I need to preface what I am about to say with the fact that I have a great programmer however, when we tried this parsing, he made a major mistake. Over 200 (yes, OVER 200:eek:!!) emails went out to the people on my list within an 8 hour period. He tried to get this job right twice more but couldn't manage it so I've decided to hire just this project out to someone more experienced.

When someone posts a project on our website, our system is supposed to filter down the list of who gets notified of it's existance. There are many variables to consider however hence the intricacy of the work. Anyway, my question is this....being that I am really paranoid about this parsing (as you can imagine), I will want to make 1000% sure that it's correct before it's applied but how can I test something like this ahead of time?

Also, is there something specific that I should be looking for in this new professional?

I would appreciate any direction you can offer. I don't have a large amount of knowledge when it comes to this end. Thanks a ton.

[is_numeric]

you need to setup a development environment. A testing stage away from production

you need thorough test scripts which document your business logic and someone who can test these cases

The mail functionality is not important in the testing phase but you need the code to output a value where you would normally invoke the mail functionality in order to see the logic working