os metadata / getting rid of enums

[Christopher Hicks]

On Wed, 18 Dec 2002, Gervase Markham wrote:
> The obvious thing to do here, it seems to me, is to have two fields. One 
> has the values Linux, Windows (NT), Windows (consumer), BSD and the 
> other has the detailed breakdown. You use JS to keep the two fields 
> consistent in the interface.
> 
> The second possible thing to do is make sure all the Linux ones contain 
> the string "Linux", and the Windows ones contain the string "Win", and 
> do regexp searching on the field instead of "exact match". You could 
> customise the query page to make this possible.

But neither of these give you everything that Jonathan's table solution
does.  For instance, you might want to track which versions of Windows are
fully 32-bit or support USB.  By having a table that's expandable you let 
the database drive the app which is a good thing IMHO.

-- 
</chris>

Programming is a Dark Art, and it will always be. The programmer is
fighting against the two most destructive forces in the universe:
entropy and human stupidity. They're not things you can always
overcome with a "methodology" or on a schedule.
		-Damian Conway, Perl God