To follow up on the relationship post, here is the final result:

I ended up with a very simple design that just allows roles to be defined for each person in a relationship. Since it would be impossible to define every one of these in advance, new [Role] list items can be keyed into the combo box and it will then be appended to the [Roles] table.

The table looks something like this:

My very earliest surviving project was what started out as a simple address book of my personal contacts. Originally an Appleworks file, the data has evolved and still lives inside an Access application. For quite a while I've thought that it would be great to link individuals by pairs of relationships.

So far all I have set up is a table to define these relationships.

Definition Converse Category
-------------------------------------------------
Brother Brother Personal
Landlord Tenant Professional
Parent Child Personal
Doctor Patient Professional
Spouse Spouse Personal
Husband Wife Personal
Wife Husband Personal
...

Each of these will link two "people" records. Some of these are reversable (Spouse) others are directional.

More to follow...

Software for Tough Times

As a long time FMS customer, I found Luke Chung's article to be right to the point about software development:

"Every organization faces a wide range of application development
challenges. Some require enterprise level solutions, while others are best
handled by front-line information workers.

The more information workers can take care of their own needs, the more
value application developers can provide to the problems beyond that. With more
and more power on individual desktops and networks, information workers can
accomplish many tasks themselves. We believe they should do so. Whether it's a
sophisticated Microsoft Excel spreadsheet or Microsoft Access database, end
users can create and modify their own solutions to quickly respond to their
needs.

Anyone who has relied on someone else to design a report and experience the
hassles of adjusting columns and getting it "just right" knows the frustrations
of relying on someone else to understand and do what you want. Let's not get in
the way of individual efforts."

Back in school up-front analysis and design was always emphasized as the best practice. Not that this is not important, but real world application development does not hinge on a simple exact formula. As it turns out an iterative approach of Design-Prototype-Present-Repeat is frequently the fastest way to a solid working solution.

Close, on-going contact between the user and developer is also critical. I've seen users develop their own queries from raw tables and thereby come to understand the process and flow of data though the system. Once the data has been identified and successfully extracted, all that was needed to solve the problem was the polish of a good user interface laid on top of wizard-generated reports.

Always important, a slowing economy just serves to emphasize this type of development efficiency.

Fall Weather

Ah rainy 49 degree nights - finally perfect coding weather.

Thought for the day

No doubt about it, web apps are a lot of work.

Twitter - no longer just for the birds

My first thought when I heard about the social networking site, Twitter, was something like, "well that's great for teenagers with a lot of time on their hands." But somewhere along the way the IT Development community seems to have taken a shine to tweeting. Ok, well just so no one can accuse me of falling into online curmudgeon status you will find my Twitter link to the right.

Hamlet Under the Stars

Tonight was perfect for and evening with Shakespeare in the Lagoon at Stan Hywet. For my money Andy Nagraj's Laertes was the best performance of the night. Highly recommended.