[Shacs] database structure question.. this one is easy -- LIKE THE STAPLES BUTTON

[Bronius Motekaitis]

>
> If you have *adequate *you might
>
etiquette?
Interestingly, this system is designed to prequalify (and claim exemption or
be disqualified) potential jurors online to prevent folks from having to
come in in person only to go home again.  Also, it will save the courts
costs for not having to pay people "just for showing up" that day.

But I can see your sentiment: it's like everyone I talk to on one side
(Secretary of State, Voter Registrar, etc) is naive and believes that most
people want the opportunity to participate in this civic duty (and in fact
believes that most people vote and keep their contact info up to date),
whereas everyone *else *I talk to is thinking of ways of circumventing the
system..  Funny business.

I think I get immunity for being involved in its development, right?  I
mean, not immunity.. I should be unfairly excluded, but I promise not to
complain about it. ;)

-bronius



On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 3:38 PM, <becky at flarity.com> wrote:

> >> the scope of this project (it's an online prequalification/impaneling
> system for jurors),
>
> All you need for a project of this scope is a webpage with a giant button
> that says "GET ME OFF".
>
> Kind of like the Staples button.
> http://www.staples.com/sbd/cre/marketing/easybutton/index.html
>
> (If you have adequate you might want to expand the text to "GET ME OFF THIS
> JURY".....but you'd probably get more hits with the shorter version.)
>
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> From: shacs-bounces at shsu.edu [mailto:shacs-bounces at shsu.edu]<shacs-bounces at shsu.edu%5D>On Behalf Of Bronius Motekaitis
> Sent: Wednesday, February 25, 2009 7:26 AM
> To: James.D.Wyman at gmail.com; SHACS
> Subject: Re: [Shacs] database structure question.. this one is easy
>
>
>
> Thanks all, for your answers thus far.  Be sure to do a ReplyAll or change
> the Bronius to a SHACS so the world can bask in your intelligence.
>
> So far, I have 2 for a defaults table, 1 opposed.  I'm leaning toward the
> defaults table, too: in addition to making it clear that these are "default"
> values without renaming foreign keys, it would also, should I so desire some
> time in the future, the developer to allow multiple defaults per court.  Say
> a given Court's Hearing is always held in one of two Locations 50% of the
> time.  Putting defaults on the Court table would disallow for this expansion
> without making a "dummy court entry" to reflect each of either case.  That
> would be bad design..
>
> To clarify one response: no, the 2nd example doesn't have the location,
> judge, required.. in it, because those are just default/seed values.  The
> whole point of the defaults table was that in creating a Hearing, pull a few
> Hearing value defaults from somewhere-- these aren't defaults for the Court
> table when creating a new Court.
>
> * note: replace "Hearing" with "Trial" for my diagrams.. that was a recent
> change in schema to better reflect the real world :)
>
> About one fellow's comment on trial duration: yes, good point to consider.
> However, for the scope of this project (it's an online
> prequalification/impaneling system for jurors), trial duration can be 1 day
> on through 7 or 14 days long.  1hr and 1/2 day sessions get rounded up.
>
> -bronius
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 8:58 AM, <James.D.Wyman at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> So you want to default values in a database? Why not create a trigger if
> these values are empty to insert a default value? I do not reccomend auto
> populating anything, instead have the input program generate the default and
> have a hardcoded default or a table you reference for default values for the
> program that are kept seperate from the data being stored. You should never
> have database driven programs that populate user data inside of themselves.
> I would say use two different sets of tables. One table for information to
> drive the program and pre-populate fields and your other database to store
> the information.
>
>
> On Feb 25, 2009 8:53am, Bronius Motekaitis <bronius.motekaitis at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Let's consider the tables: Hearing, Court, Judge, and Location (notice
> the CAPS: I did that so I wouldn't scare away any Access fans and
> undergrads..!)
> >
> > A Hearing can hear any Court's cases at any Location by any Judge, so
> these are all foreign keys on Hearing. When creating a Hearing, I want to
> populate default values for Judge, Location and a handful of other values
> not shown here based on the Court selected.
> >
> >
> > Where should I attach these default values?  Does it make more sense to
> make a "Court_Default" table or stuff the given Court table with these
> foreign key values as defaults?
> >
> > See attached for comparison of the two models considered..
> >
> >
> > -bronius
> >
>
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