[Babase] Storing male mature dates in the database
Susan Alberts
babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Sun, 21 Nov 2004 00:42:04 +0300
>On 2004.11.20 02:31 Susan Alberts wrote:
>>Works for me. The two columns would be called something like
>>"matured" and "mature by", right? I am not attached to any
>>particular name as long as it's clear. Thanks,
>
>Uh, we want _one_ column, and a second 'type" column. The
>type would indicate 'matured-natal' or 'matured by'.
Oh right, sorry to be dense. Yes, I think this will work well.
We will have to do this both for "matured" and for "ranked" --
"matured" signals the entry to subadulthood, "ranked" to adulthood.
Remind me, will there be separate tables for males and females? I
can't remember what we discussed here. If both are in the same table,
then all females and all natal males for whom we have the data will
have one code, all males for whom we do not have the data (immigrant
males who entered after maturity and natal males for whom we missed
this event) will have another. Right?
Another issue is that we used "ranked" as an indicator of adulthood
for males and so it is quite an important marker for males. However,
the same is not for females. For females we used "matured" to
indicate the onset of adulthood. While we would, in principle, like
to have "ranked" dates recorded for females, in practice we have not
had this in the database, so this field has been blank for females.
So for the "ranked" table we would only have males in it at least for
now, yes? (I think I recall that we talked about separate tables for
matured, ranked and consorted). The same would be true for consorted.
Susan
>
>>
>>Susan
>>
>>>Susan,
>>>
>>>After meeting with folks here the concensus is that
>>>it's a bad idea to store "we're sure they're mature
>>>by this date" male maturity dates in a different
>>>table from the "we watched these males reach
>>>maturity" mature dates. For lots of reasons,
>>>mostly having to do with difficulty writing
>>>queries to find all the adults if we have 2 tables, we think they
>>>should go in the same table and be distinguished
>>>by a 'kind of maturity date' flag.
>>>
>>>However, we have to convince you before going forward.
>>>
>>>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>>>Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>>> -- Robert A. Heinlein
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Babase mailing list
>>>Babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
>>>http://www.eco.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/babase
>>
>>
>>--
>>--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338,
>>Durham NC 27708
>>919-660-7272 (phone), 919-660-7293 (FAX)
>>_______________________________________________
>>Babase mailing list
>>Babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
>>http://www.eco.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/babase
>
>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
> -- Robert A. Heinlein
>_______________________________________________
>Babase mailing list
>Babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
>http://www.eco.princeton.edu/mailman/listinfo/babase
--
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338,
Durham NC 27708
919-660-7272 (phone), 919-660-7293 (FAX)