Re: Multiple specification of constraints

>
> I'm still very confused about the example. What did you have, what
changed,
> and how did you make the change easily?
>

During a visit of one of the consultants (a developer as wel) users said that there
was no function (or button or easy way) to get only the members of a certain department.
There was a selection function on part of the membersname, but no selection on dept.
The name of each member was extended with the departmentname, the users could use
the function build for searching names to search for members on that department.

Example :
Before : Smith

              Jones
              Anne
              Britta

After : Smith Bicycle_refurbis_dept
           Jones red_tape_dept
           Anne Bicycle_selling_dept
           Britta Make_A_Hole_In_paper_dept

Before on had to search for all the names or on a part of the name, now one could
just give 'cycle' and you got all cycle related departments. (In the actual case the departmentnames were shortened to just a few letters.)

There was no change in the database, there was no change in the code, but the users got (within the visit time of the consultant) a workable solution.

If this had been done in accordance with all relational database rules, a departmentname is not part of a membersname, so a seperate field should hold the department. Code should be written to get all members of a department and the userinterface would have to be addapted.

The solution prevented a develpment cycle to get that function to the users. (A development cycle is a time consuming and costly 'thingy' in most organisations, because it involves the specification, development, testing getting the result to the customers).

ben

> - Eric
>
>
Received on Mon Mar 08 2004 - 09:43:34 CST