Nope, no sarcasm intended. It just doesn't seem worth it to change
something that isn't causing a problem when the change WILL create
problems. Everyone with old data who updates will have to move the
data from the old column to the new column, or forget to and have it
disappear for them, just to be able to call it "tracking number"
instead of "tracking code".
And we're not talking about some abstract disconnected field, we're
talking about a field on the ShipmentPackageRouteSegment entity.
Also keep in mind that this is not just used for the common carriers
and for consumer shipments, but also for shipping by train and ship
and private truck and such.
Either way, I'd say no, unless there is some serious confusion that is
causing problems there is no reason to change it and create problems.
Is it inconsistent, yes. Is it causing a problem?
-David
On Oct 28, 2008, at 12:25 AM, Joe Eckard wrote:
On Oct 27, 2008, at 4:08 PM, David E Jones wrote:
To me this doesn't seem like enough of a reason to change the field
name.
Did you run into some big confusion between the terms "tracking
code" and "tracking number"? In a way I don't like tracking number
because most tracking "numbers" aren't really numbers, they include
alpha letters and sometimes punctuation too.
No, nothing like that - I just wasn't sure why we refer to this
identifier as "trackingIdNumber" in the ShipmentRouteSegment entity,
"trackingNumber" in the OrderItemShipGroup entity, and
"trackingCode" in the ShipmentPackageRouteSeg entity. I think that
all three are describing the same thing.
Also, I agree that "tracking ID" would have been a better choice for
everyone to somehow agree on, however... see below
I must admit though that I've never run into anything like this
sort of confusion or any sort of related conflict in terms. Is
there something online somewhere that my be helpful for me, and
others similarly uniformed (if there are any)?
In all of the documentation / advertising / help sections / FAQs /
confirmation emails, etc. I have read, this identifier is called a
tracking number.
If you google "tracking number", the first results are pages from
the four main carriers that all refer to this identifier as a
tracking number.
If you look at the existing code in OFBiz, it is already referred to
as a tracking number in most places, but mapped back to trackingCode
for the package route segment.
The Fedex and UPS APIs accept / return this identifier explicitly as
TrackingNumber.
Actually, it feels a little bizarre even stopping to write this -
maybe because the term is just ingrained in my vocabulary, and I
think I may be misreading some sarcasm?
In any case, the reason I brought this up is that I am working on
some code dealing with shipments, packages and tracking numbers and
it seemed like a clear-cut, genuine naming inconsistency that should
be corrected before any more code was written to follow it.
-David
On Oct 26, 2008, at 9:38 AM, Joe Eckard wrote:
ShipmentPackageRouteSeg has a field called trackingCode which
should really be trackingNumber (see: OrderItemShipGroup field
"trackingNumber" & standard industry terminology). The field name
"trackingCode" is used in the marketing entities and code to
describe something completely different.
I created a patch for this, and it touches quite a few files - are
there any objections to this change?
-Joe
