Re: ID field as logical address

Walter Mitty wrote:
...
> I think the process by which 714 comes to be associated with Joe Friday is
> actually somewhat mysterious. Googling "Badge 714" confirmed this opinion.
> BTW, I an NOT using "mysterious" as a code word for "mystical". The one
> thing I can say is that it's not a consequence of the data. It's either
> part of the data as given, or it's part of some fairly arbitrary process.
> ...

There will always be 'mysteries' that machines don't deal with. I'd say requirements should always trump any notion of some data being innately different from other data. Requirements are arbitrary, to say they aren't is to say any system will suit any purpose. For me if it's a requirement that a system generate badge numbers, that's pretty much the same thing as a requirement that it generate invoice numbers. If it's a requirement that a clerk generate the numbers instead, so be it. Whether the numbers are calculated or sequential or reversible might be another requirement.

If it's a requirement that the formula for Coca-Cola must never be recorded in a database, so be it. Every once in a while a word comes up here that I have trouble spelling, anthrop...morphizing or somesuch. And I have seen 'requirements' that some aspect of a system be 'personalized'! The literalists might say that a system that is not personalized, must be impersonal. Both are inapt. Machines are neither personal nor impersonal. Received on Sat May 30 2009 - 20:33:28 CEST