[Babase] Re: Enhancements to Ranker
Karl O. Pinc
kop at meme.com
Tue Jan 8 13:41:29 EST 2008
On 01/08/2008 12:24:34 PM, Jun Yang wrote:
> >From the programming standpoint, it's fairly easy to add the
> functionality
> that initializes the ranking with an existing one in the database
> (either for
> the exact same month or for the latest preceding month). However, I
> personally I like the explicit step of "load/incorporate" because:
>
> 1) There is a good amount of logic working behind the scene if we
> initialize
> implicitly. I think it's rather dangerous if the user is unaware of
> the exact logic.
> For example, did the ranking come from the same or an earlier month?
> If
> the ranked population is different, how are the difference handled?
> With the
> explicit "load/incorporate" step, all these intricacies are exposed,
> and the user
> has a chance of examining them before deciding to accept or abort.
> (This is
> the same point as Tabby's first point above.)
>
> 2) Load/incorporate is pretty fast anyway; the user doesn't need to
> type
> anything except click a few times.
I agree, it's good to be explicit.
However, as I understand the process, a new ranking gets created
for _every_ group for _every_ month. Not only does this happen
all the time, it's probably important that it happen the same
way each time. To ensure consistency and avoid the possibility
of error, as well as to facilitate quick operation my guess would
be that it'd be best to A) tell the user that there is no ranking,
and B) in the same dialog give them one button to press that will
allow the creation of a new ranking from that of the previous month,
or create an alphabetical one otherwise, etc.
This may be complicated in the general case, because there may
be special rules depending on what sort of ranking is done.
The forgoing may not apply. While the program should remain
general to facilitate additional, unanticipated, future rankings
it's also important that we don't unnecessarily make the
"normal" process more error prone. I don't have any feeling
at all as to how much error might be introduced given various
procedures. You'll have to rely on Tabby and Lacey to figure
out the proper balance.
There are other procedures that are followed when a new ranking
is created, if there's no pre-existing data at all. I forget
the details, but I recall ordering some initial ranking by
age.
Karl <kop at meme.com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
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