RE: Strategy for navigation & validation

[Bob Ebert]

At 3:29 PM -0800 3/31/99, Jason Dawes wrote:
>Excuse me?  Whats wrong with the conduit doing some data validation?

The problem is that the validation may come when it's too late to do
anything about it.

It would be a shame if some green census taker spent all day out in the
field, only to get back and sync and find that no data goes to the server
because they forgot to enter the ZIP codes!

Simply ignoring data because it's not complete is rarely the right solution.

You're right though that if the server allows for some kind of 'missing'
specification for the ZIP, then the conduit should translate empty ZIP
fields to the proper missing spec.  (Probably something like 00000-0000.)

Of course, then it could be months later when the census people find out
that all the census workers in some neighborhood ended up with the
'missing' zip for ALL their data, because they were improperly trained in
how to fill in the forms...

Sometimes you're just better off with a simple-but-annoying solution.  :)

                                --Bob