FW: [Babase] Fwd: baboons with no deathdate and Ositeti
subgroups (formerly Mica's infant MESHAEK)
Karl O. Pinc
kop at meme.com
Fri Oct 9 15:37:38 EDT 2009
On 10/09/2009 01:42:12 PM, Niki Learn wrote:
>
> Susan suggested the following (which makes sense as an alternative to
> a "presumed dead" status):
> It seems like it would require an additional column that might
> indicate a "permanently retired" sname. The column would be "YES" (ie
>
> the sname is permanently retired) for all individuals with status =
> dead, and for individuals with status = alive, there would be some
> date or lapse of time after which we would permanently retire the
> sname.
I have a problem with this because it seems to put the same information
("usable" or not) into two columns (the new one and
Status). Both users and the system would have to check in two
places, and the system would have to have additional code
to make sure the 2 columns are consistent. (I.e. dead but not
permanently retired does not sound valid.) The data consistency is no
big deal but checking in 2 places could be, at least some work is
involved.
And I don't see another column buying anything at all beyond what
you get with another legal value for the status column.
Karl <kop at meme.com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
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