[Babase] Rankdate Changes in Babase

Susan Alberts alberts at duke.edu
Sat Mar 20 10:03:15 EDT 2010


Most maturedates that don't fall on the first of the month are 'by'  
dates but a number are 'on' dates from earlier decades. These used to  
be done with dates other than the first of the month -- there is  
nothing wrong with them, but they can be changed.

For rankdates, indeed most "on" dates are first of the month, but a  
few are not. There were some instances where we actually saw the day  
on which rank was attained, and entered those dates. All are from  
earlier decades and all can be changed.

Susan

On Mar 19, 2010, at 4:22 PM, Jeanne Altmann wrote:

> Ah, yes. I assume all of these are ‘by’ dates.  If not. Something  
> more is wrong. Thanks for the update on progress.
> jeanne
>
> From: babase-bounces at eeblistserv.princeton.edu [mailto:babase-bounces at eeblistserv.princeton.edu 
> ] On Behalf Of Lacey Maryott Roerish
> Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 4:15 PM
> To: The Baboon Database Project
> Subject: Re: [Babase] Rankdate Changes in Babase
>
> Susan, Jeanne, Niki and Karl
>
>     I am running into some problems with changing the rankdates to  
> the first of the month.  There is a rule that the matured date has  
> to be less than or equal to rank date (With good reason). However,  
> all of the maturedates that also occur mid-month are throwing an  
> error. So, it looks as though I will have to roll those back as  
> well. Will pick at this and try to fix all of the maturedates before  
> rolling the rankdates back.
>
>     I spoke with Karl about this and there is a work-around that  
> could fix the majority while skipping the ones that violate this  
> rule, but it kind of seems like if I am going to be elbow deep in  
> the data anyway, I should just fix the whole problem at once.   Does  
> this fit with how princeton feels about the timeline of this  
> project?  I expect I can have it all fixed my mid-morning monday, I  
> just want to do some cross-checking of maturedates and rankdates and  
> make sure there aren't any glaring errors before i change a whole  
> bunch of data in 2 tables.
>
> Let me know
>
> Lacey
>
> On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Jeanne Altmann <altj at princeton.edu>  
> wrote:
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: babase-bounces at eeblistserv.princeton.edu
> [mailto:babase-bounces at eeblistserv.princeton.edu] On Behalf Of Karl O.
> Pinc
> Sent: Friday, March 19, 2010 3:15 PM
> To: The Baboon Database Project
> Subject: Re: [Babase] Rankdate Changes in Babase
>
> On 03/19/2010 01:48:28 PM, Lacey Maryott Roerish wrote:
> > Susan, (et al)
> >
> >       Jeanne, Karl, Niki and I just finished discussing how to  
> handle
> > some
> > recent issues discovered in babase related to Rankdates.  It can be
> > difficult to extract number of males on a given date if some males
> > rankdates
> > occur in the middle of the month.  For this reason,  I will be
> > changing all
> > rankdates (Both BY and ON) to the beginning on the month using a
> > function
> > Karl had previously developed.  This will simply make querying
> > easier,
> > and
> > will also sync up rankdates data with actual rank data, which are  
> all
> > recorded on the 1st of the month.
>
> We will also then put a rule in requiring that rankdates.rnkdate be
> on the first of the month.  (Once Lacey let's me know she's done
> changing the data.)
>
> The problem has been that nobody ever uses the rnkdate() function,
> which sets a date to the first of the month, when comparing
> ranks.rnkdate with rankdates.ranked.  They'll still have to use this
> function when doing arbitrary date comparisons against either
> ranks.rnkdate or, now, rankdates.ranked so we're not really
> making the problem go away, but are pushing it farther to the
> fringes.  In any case the ranks.rnkdate/rankdate.ranked problem
> has been discussed every few years so it's clear there's a
> problem there that this change will make go away.
>
>
> Karl <kop at meme.com>
> Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                 -- Robert A. Heinlein
>
> Agreed; it will remain a potentially valuable function that we need to
> remember the situations you note.  However, with the proposed  
> change, we
> will have the ranked-by date regularized, which is good, and we will
> make moot the most common use for the function. Thanks Karl for the
> patient reminder about the function and all for brainstorming on the
> various issues.
>
> jeanne
>
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>
>
> -- 
> - -
> Lacey K. Maryott Roerish
> Alberts Lab
> Department of Biology
> Duke University
> ph: 919-660-7306
> fax: 919-660-7293
> Lacey.Maryott at duke.edu
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--------------------------------------------------------
Susan Alberts, Dept of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham NC  
27708, 919-660-7272 (Ph), 919-660-7293 (Fax)







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