Database connectivity
USMS has several important database systems.
- Top Ten is the most important to us. Data comes to the R&T ("Top Ten") Chairman in many forms. He processes it in dBase and sends us comma delimited files. Swimmers are identified by name and age, with many misspelled and new names.
- Registration is managed by 55 Registrars around the US, mostly using a dBase system, and their work is coordinated by a Registrar using Excel. The Registrar periodically exports the consolidated Registration file and sends it to us. We do not have a consistent format by which the file comes to us. The Registrar file identifies swimmers by a Registration Number which is purposely changed every year. Names change often from year to year, because of marriage, whim, and error.
- ....
The H&A Committee uses database and website maitenance tools created by Carl House using the language APL. These tools were required because our databases had no key field and included many misspellings, name changes, and other errors. We also knew there would be great variety in the nature of information we gathered and that it might be vast in quantity. We felt it important that our archives be stored with the least possible enhancement (raw content) and that our processing not be labor intensive. These are a set of special conditions that are not common to most database or website creation tasks.
There are few other users of APL in USMS, and volunteer labor is very important to how USMS gets things done. Therefore, we are committed to using tools that are in widespread use in USMS whenever we can.
The archives catalogue is a good example.
That project is new. There are other tools available that will do the job.
There is, therefore, no need to use APL.
At present, the tool we are using is Excel,
but that is likely to change in the future.
At the present time, the APL compiler is
reading the Excel file and creating an html page (without any importing or exporting).
So, existing APL capability is being used to display the catalogue on-line,
but APL is not being used to create or maintain the catalogue.
APL performs a similar function in reading
Gail Roper's Excel file of Olympians who have swum USMS and
Mary Beth Windrath's file of Nat.Champ. meet results
and Sandi Rousseau's file showing who has what Nat. Champ. meet results.
In all 4 of these cases, the APL webpage compiler is reading the file
exactly as it is being given to us without any importing or exporting.
/committee/archives.htm - Barbara Dunbar's archives catalogue.
/committee/olympians.htm - Gail Roper's list of Olympians in USMS.
/committee/champresults.htm - Sandi Rousseau's list of Nat. Champ. results.
/committee/natsdb.htm - Mary Beth Windrath's file of Nat. Champ. results
We've now moved all these items into one place and have hopes
that Barbara will be able to improve how they are organized
and that she will lead the creation of maintenance procedures for these databases and tables and catalogues.
(She will need technical help.)
/committee/datatables.htm
