[245] in iswork
Status of IS Work updates
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kevin M. Cunningham)
Fri Jun 22 10:42:23 2001
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Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 10:42:19 -0400
To: iswork@mit.edu
From: "Kevin M. Cunningham" <kcunning@MIT.EDU>
Cc: cavan@mit.edu
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Howdy all,
Just a heads up about some development work I've been doing.
Currently, the IS Work system employs 5 core databases (Themes,
Initiatives, etc.) and several accessory databases. Because the
server has a limited number of databases it can host simultaneously
and new projects are coming aboard, I have been looking for ways to
reduce the number of databases needed in IS Work and other database
sets running on the server (the Stock Answers database among them).
I have found a simple elegant way to condense the 5 core IS Work
databases into a single database. This involves no loss of integrity
to the system. It does change some of the element names, and these
have some visibility in the URLs and certain backdoor database
references. (An obvious example is that a reference in a URL to, say,
the database Themes.fp5 will need to be changed to refer the new
common database. More subtly, an internal reference to the field
"themeID" becomes a reference to the generic "isworkID", where the
"type" of the record -- here "Theme" -- is noted in another field.)
The changes would also allow us to have only 3 or 4 core html files
where we currently have over 20, so it's a real gain in efficiency
and maintainability.
When implemented, the system should work exactly as before for users
who enter from the main page (i.e., the same services and views will
be provided as currently). There will be some fallout for people who
have bookmarks to go directly to certain pages, but I plan to provide
backward compatability for the file changes.
If I didn't need to reduce the number of database files we serve, I
would opt to leave IS Work as is, even given the potential
maintainability gains, since the system works fine. As it is, I HAVE
to make room and am exploring these changes for all the databases I
serve.
If all goes well, I should be able to show you the revised system
within a week (I am just tidying up some of the HTML files now -- the
revised database is pretty much done). Then we can switch over
whenever we decide is appropriate.
--Kevin
