[Babase] Fwd: babase update and conf call
Susan Alberts
alberts at duke.edu
Tue Sep 12 17:25:34 EDT 2006
Sorry, I don't know why I didn't send that the mailing list! Here is
it again.
Susan
Begin forwarded message:
> From: Susan Alberts <alberts at duke.edu>
> Date: September 12, 2006 5:24:13 PM EDT
> To: "Karl O. Pinc" <kop at meme.com>, Jeanne Altmann
> <altj at Princeton.EDU>, KETHERINE FENN <kfenn at Princeton.EDU>, Leah
> Gerber <lgerber at duke.edu>, Catherine_Markham Markham
> <amarkham at princeton.edu>
> Subject: babase update and conf call
>
> Dear all,
>
> Karl is about to reach a solid end point and we are excited about
> this. There are some loose ends that will need to be tied up, and
> we think that a babase conference call for Thursday would be a good
> thing. We would really love Catherine to be involved if at all
> possible becuase of her relatively long history with babase (and as
> a future user), but I realize her schedule is now quite different.
>
> Jeanne and I have a different conf call at 11. We could do our
> babase conf call before that, at 10 am, or we could do it bewtween
> 2:30 and 3:30. That is about all the time that I have free that
> day. If that can't work out then let me know and we will discuss
> another time after Karl is back in Chi, but it seems like it would
> be good to do it before he leaves here (but not absolutely necessary).
>
> Here is the update and agenda for our call:
>
> Here are the things that still need to be done before Karl leaves.
>
> Cycgaps validation and assigning cycles.series AND automatic
> cycgaps updateing. This is in progress now.
> Reconversion using the new automatic updates.
> Update Ranks documentation (is this the last table for which the
> documentation reflects the old foxpro system?)
>
> At that point, the conversion is done, except for then debugging to
> deal with conversion errors that are programming errors (if any).
>
> After this final conversion, there are some things that we will
> need to do and decisions we need to make that affect how we use the
> database (I am NOT including in this list the things that we all
> know are outstanding, such a developing the data entry procedures,
> adding new tables, creating new ranker, and fixing the front end).
>
> Non-trigger error checks. There are a set of error checks that we
> can run to check the integrity and accuracy of the database. The
> errors that this would find are not errors that could or should be
> coded as automatic triggers, hence we will describe these as non-
> trigger error checks. They are things like checking that every
> animal present in the group has a rank assigned (as opposed to
> checking that no one is assigned a rank unless they are in the
> group – this latter one is a trigger, the former cannot be because
> before ranks are assigned, no one has a rank). Karl notes that we
> have always had these non-trigger error checks available to run in
> foxpro, but that no one has every really run them or used them to
> identify and correct errors. Hence, they are effectively optional
> error checks. The code has been written for these error checks, but
> not debugged and hence not run before. Our options are:
> Take the error checks that Karl has written and debug and run them
> ourselves, one by one as needed. They are sql queries, so this is
> highly feasible but laborious.
> Have Karl debug and concatenate them into a single program that
> would be run whenever we wanted it to be, probably automatically on
> a regular basis.
> Outsource this project to someone else – i.e., hire someone to
> concatenate and debug these programs into a single program that
> would be run automatically.
> Testing and pushing the system. Karl’s concern as a professional
> programmer is that we find the worst bugs early on and fix them. He
> points out that of course there will be bugs. To find them, we need
> to push the system – do a lot of manipulation of the tables using
> babase_test. Update rows, delete rows, make illegal and legal
> changes and see how the system performs. Ideally this should be
> done for all tables, all columns. The sexual cycles tables should
> have special attention here because there are so many “analyzed”
> tables. This kind of testing will also reveal performance issues
> that might come up that we haven’t anticipated or found yet. One
> approach would be to just devote a certain amount of time in Leah’s
> and Tabby’s week, some week, to doing this. Another option would be
> contracting Karl or someone else to do this. It might be a couple
> of days work, hard for me to say.
> Dealing with warnings and unwanted error messages. Every night, the
> program will run the triggers, and these automatic checks will
> produce a list of error messages and warnings related to data
> “errors” in the database. Specifically, anytime a rule is violated
> (rules outlined in the documentation) a message will appear. Some
> of these we will want to ignore forever or for the time being, and
> we will not want to be revisited with them every day. So, Karl
> proposes a program that will defer or eliminate unwanted error
> messages and warnings. This is optional, but would be a great
> convenience. It is not really something that I think is feasible
> for us to do without professional help, unless Leah or Tabby have
> insight into this. What to do?
> Checking cycle ids? Karl points out that in creating the new cycle
> files in the new babase system, cycles have different cids in many
> cases than they did in the old babase system. He wants to know
> whether we want a program that maps old onto new, so that we can
> find particular cycles that we analyzed in foxpro.
>
> -----------------------------------------------
> Susan Alberts, Dept. Biology, Duke University, Durham NC 27708.
> Phone 919-660-7272, Fax 919-660-7293. alberts at duke.edu
>
>
>
-----------------------------------------------
Susan Alberts, Dept. Biology, Duke University, Durham NC 27708. Phone
919-660-7272, Fax 919-660-7293. alberts at duke.edu
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