Thoughts on manual database design?

[Jay Jaeger]

On 10/2/2015 8:40 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jay Jaeger" <cube1 at charter.net>
> To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Friday, October 02, 2015 9:08 PM
> Subject: Re: Thoughts on manual database design?
> 
> 
>> On 10/2/2015 7:25 PM, Mike Stein wrote:
> ...
>>> No provision for multiple (changed) publishers
>>> so a given manual could
>>> show up under both Compaq or HP, for example?
>>
>> Yes, there is.  That is why an *artifact* - a
>> given *hardcopy* of a
>> manual - has a *publisher*.   As I mentioned in
>> an earlier reply at some
>> point to someone, a given manual applies to a
>> single machine
>> *manufacturer* (e.g., Apollo is considered the
>> manufacturer of the DN
>> series, even though, technically, later HP made
>> them for a year or two),
>> but a given manual with the same number the
>> applies to them might have
>> Apollo as a publisher (older copy) and HP (newer
>> copy - with the same
>> contents).
>>
> 
> Might you not miss a manual if you listed all your HP manuals and your
> only copy (identical to the HP version) happened to be published by Apollo?
> 

Conceivably, but I frankly don't care, because then, as far as *my*
*inventory* is concerned, the HP version doesn't exist.  This search is
about my inventory, not the world library.  ;)

The search app could, conceivably, also be clever about such situations,
and notice that the machine criteria has "DN" or 4xx or 7xx and then
search for both HP and Apollo as a manufacturer or publisher, but I
doubt I will bother, as I expect that the searcher will be able to
select multiple manufacturers/publishers for a search.

(Which reminds me - I forgot to change the foreign key for Publisher to
point to the Manufacturers table so that any search lists get populated
correctly.  Fixed.)

I certainly don't want to equivalence HP and Apollo for all searches.

JRJ