[RBG7-L] - Re: Developer Updates

[Alastair Burr]

Emmitt's point is a very good one! If you are going to have hundreds, or even thousands of schools, you will need to be able to have one system that you can adapt - via a table or tables - for each.   Long ago and far away we used to do a world-wide monthly collection & distribution of data on floppy-disks (!) that loaded new info into a master database and then sent back to everyone everything new but their own updates. It was clumsy and long-winded (in v4.5 if I remember) but it worked - so R:Base now can do it much better.   Advice? Do you best to keep it simple and use table/column names that are as meaningful as possible. Get your database design right before you get too far ahead on anything else - it's certain to need changes as you go. It's much easier to have two tables early on and combine them later than to try and split one if you suddenly need to. Users are particularly good at not telling you what they want early on and even better at having good ideas when you've done it another way!   Best of luck, Regards, Alastair.     ----- Original Message ----- From: Emmitt Dove To: RBG7-L Mailing List Sent: Friday, July 23, 2004 5:18 PM Subject: [RBG7-L] - Re: Developer Updates For operational differences, geographic identities, etc, I'd use a table-driven approach.  For instance, we have a payroll module that was set up to account for contractual differences at six different plants.  All the contractual information was stored in a table.  Also, each of our locations has a table where we ID the location itself.  And, after having to go through all our code and change the company name on reports, etc., once, we moved that into a table.  Now, if we change our company name again, I change one row in one table at each location instead of hundreds of reports and command files. I have a question for the developers out there.  First, a little history.   I am developing an application for our schools nationwide.  Although the base application is the same for all the schools, some of the schools require customization due to geographic locations or operational issues.    Therefore, what is the best way to manage these changes?  It would be quite a task to maintain a separate application for each school.  What about general updates to everyone's application?  What is the best way to approach these updates?   Thanks in advance for any feedback   Joel Solomon Controller Barbizon International [EMAIL PROTECTED] Emmitt Dove Manager, DairyPak Business Systems Blue Ridge Paper Products, Inc. 40 Lindeman Drive Trumbull, CT  06611 (203) 673-2231 [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]