Ian Goddard wrote: > [email protected] wrote: >> Ian Goddard wrote: >>> Nope. You end up having to make such changes because you didn't think >>> it through in the first place. >> >> Oh yes, I recognize that argument. But I've never come across a project >> that didn't have it surprises, even after having written down and >> discussed and agreed upon the requirements document. > > OTOH well planned S/W products are able to cope with a wide range of > applications. I used to be a sysadmin for a client using a particular > ERP package for warehouse management. Another site of the same company > used the same package to support a print-buying business and a hardware > service business. I don't doubt that other users of the package had > distinctly different ways of deploying it. > > %>< >>> By now it should be clear how to treat this. You recognise /in advance/ >>> that the hierarchies will be time-dependent and make provision for >>> optional start and finish dates. You also recognise that a particular >>> place may be simultaneously in different hierarchies, e.g. >>> ecclesiastical (even different ecclesiastical hierarchies, such as >>> different Anglican & RC parishes), manorial, Poor Law. You adopt a data >>> model that fits and then code to that. >> >> Sounds good, but are you british? >> I think you underestimate the complexity of it all. My family tree (my >> mother's work) goes back to around 1590. Our regions (Flanders) have been >> jostled around between the big powers for a number of times and >> reorganized again and again. The town where most of my family lives now >> (and also in the past, has even been scinded in two (part Spanish, part >> French) for a number of years. > > This is a specific example of a general requirement. It's essentially > no different from the situation that Holmfirth chapelry was split > between two parishes and that things were shuffled round in both > ecclesiastical and civil terms. Provide a /general/ framework for > constructing location hierarchies which makes provision for a split and > it makes no difference at what level the split happens. You didn't > mention whether the town has different names in different languages > which sometimes happens. It's so common here I forgot about it. Many places have french names, and major places have german, english, spanish names. Herman > Again, it's a general requirement; if you > allow for synonyms you can handle Pontefract vs Pomfret just as easily > as Koeningsberg vs Kaliningrad. > >> I think a lot of family tree researches simply give up there, it >> is way to time consuming to record it all. > > Again my area confuses more distant researchers because there's no > effective means to convey these changes. Wouldn't it be better if there > were? > -- Veel mensen danken hun goed geweten aan hun slecht geheugen. (G. Bomans) Lots of people owe their good conscience to their bad memory (G. Bomans)