Re: Impossible Database Design?

Nikolai Onken wrote:
> I didn't tell you yet:
> I wanted to go to buy tickets to Israel today and guess what..
> Inbetween the time our agent called her agent to find out the price and
> the call she made to confirm the flight after we decided that it was
> the right flight the price of the flight raised by 6 percent... yeah
> the guys who have writte that kind of software must have had a good
> imagination of time and sense.

[You're stepping on my toes, today...]

I did a couple projects for a US air carrier. Prices change all the time. Most travelers realize that prices increase as departure time nears. Most travelers don't realize that prices on some legs drop like a rock as departure time gets very near. Shop wisely if price is your criterion.

You mentioned Israel: was that an international flight? Price fluctuations in that arena don't happen - at least, not the way I gathered from your description. Something else is in the mix...

> Better than that our agent had to tell us after we said that we want
> the flight, that the online based system crashed and that she would
> have to call us back today or tomorrow - with no guarantee whether the
> price stais or whether the flight actually would be still available

I doubt it was "the" system.

> (since yeah of course 500 other people could have tried to book the
> same flight at the exact same point...)...
> Anyways... of course i don't know why their system crashed but
> obviously these guys didn't have a clear idea how to handle time in
> their software...

I suspect the contrary is true.

> Not only where they not able to make an offer without having the price
> change within 5 minutes because the system is online based, but they
> where not even able to freeze a reservation or so....

Price changes don't have anything to do with whether "the system is online based." As for "freez[ing] a reservation:" that depends on with whom you're dealing; it might be time to buy better agency.

> I don't even want to know how they handle price changes every few
> minutes and stuff in a relational database :)

Very easily - but I suspect the underlying model their system uses is network rather than relational.

> Luckily we have processors who can handle 64bit ...

Your 64 bit processors ain't nothing compared to the processors they're using.

  and dates until
> forever...

We'll just have to wait to see whether or not that's true. Received on Thu May 18 2006 - 21:36:27 CEST