[AccessD] Names or numbers?

Hi Charlotte:

I am speaking from the perspective of many of my clients. These are
government organizations and their standards are very specific. It is either
their way or the highway.

With that said, there are of course variations within a theme but the
latitude or creativity the developer can exercise is very limited by the
technical standards manuals or by the senior government ITS project manager.
You can bet that their view of artistic license is on the conservative side.

I had the pleasure of writing a document on how a reference document could
be written. It was later accepted as a standard. From that day on, all
fonts, weight, indentation of any application manuals had to adhere the
standard. All submissions were marked up or down by compliance.

That process goes doubly for coding. Every table, view, stored procedure
field, key and foreign key name must comply. So many lines of explanation
for every piece of code and so on.

There are many good companies, with good developers out there. If one does
not what to comply there is no point in bidding on a contract. I have
witnessed a perspective contractor, with an otherwise, perfect bid loss a
contract on just a missed signature.

It is definitely a buyer market and government clients are extremely
rigid...On the other hand they pay very well. ...Betweeen $75 and $140 per
hour which can be an excellent way go on even a small three month contract.
:-)

I may no be able to be bought but I can be rented.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Charlotte
Foust
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 11:05 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Names or numbers?


You're a masochist then.  If I can't persuade the client that they're
paying for my knowledge and expertise, then I get a new client.

Charlotte Foust


-----Original Message-----
From: Jim Lawrence (AccessD) [mailto:accessd at shaw.ca]
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 8:52 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] Names or numbers?


Hi Roz:

You pay the bills and the contractor is the payee. What ever you say
goes. No matter how dumb I may feel the client's requests are, if it
does not affect the functionality, it is my job to attempt to satisfy
them...period.

Bottom-line
HTH
Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Roz Clarke
Sent: Wednesday, August 04, 2004 5:51 AM
To: AccessD (AccessD at databaseadvisors.com)
Subject: [AccessD] Names or numbers?


Dear all

I am currently engaged in an argument with a contractor over the naming
of details in our database.

His argument is that since the actual names of the details will never be
exposed to the ordinary user, we should just give them numbers;
X0000001, X0000002 and so forth. X denotes the current phase of
development, another whacky idea of his. The 'friendly' names are held
in a lookup table.

Personally, since I have to work with these details on a daily basis, I
would like the code to be a combination of categorisation, e.g. using
the 1st two characters to describe the position / type of the detail,
say XC for claimant details and XD for defendant details and XA for
admin details, whilst using the other (up to 6) characters to describe
the detail, say XCDOB for claimant's date of birth.

The contractor's contention is that people will make up arbitrary &
meaningless character codes which will be confusing, whereas the
numbered details will be in a sensible sequence.

a) he is not proposing to leave any gaps in the sequence for later
insertion of related details
b) I don't see how a number is going to be less confusing than an alpha
code
c) we can still use the lookup table with the alpha codes if needed

Has anyone got any thoughts on naming conventions? Any experience of
fully numeric naming systems that they can share? I have the authority
to overrule him but this is a really big project so I want to get it
right, and he is
(theoretically) a lot more experienced than I am. He just hasn't come up
with any convincing arguments.

TIA

Roz

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