On Mon, Aug 19, 2002 at 11:27:55AM +0100, Richard Lyons wrote: > I'm beginning to wish I hadn't made that "helpful" initial post. What a lot > of heat over how things are said.
You shouldn't be sorry. It is a good work-around for a minor misfeature. > I'm not copying the earlier postings because I don't want to further inflame > this conversation. > > The essential point is that the default that exists is (I assume without even > trying to check the code) a true default - the result of not putting any > code in for the default. The drop-down simply shows the first item on its > list. This means that any change is likely to be, in one sense, "bloat". Development tools don't become "right" merely by virtue of the fact that that's the way they work. If the drop-downs automagically default to the first item in the list, then the underlying code in the drop-downs is badly designed. In the real world, the most important account ledger is rarely --if ever-- the first account ledger, whether you sort them by number or description. Tools, whether a specialist tool like sql-ledger, or a general purpose tool like perl, or anything in between, are only "right" if they do the job they are meant to do. There is no sense in giving people a hammer if what they want and need is a screwdriver. Sometimes you have to compromise, because the work needed to give people a screwdriver is more than it is worth. If that is the case, say so. > Now, the present arrangement is, in fact, very flexible. Each drop-down gets > its list from the user's settings when creating the list of accounts. So you > could take one of the following strategies: > > 1 - my strategy: use a single catch-all account with a prominent name > and set it to appear in all drop-downs. > > 2 - set a separate catch-all account for each type of drop-down (payable, > receivable, etc.) with a suitable name. > > 3 - select the account you would prefer to be the default for each type > of drop-down, and go to the chart of accounts and change each one's > number so that it is the first (numerically) amongst the accounts > with the coresponding 'include in drop-down menus' link. That > ensures you get the default you want. These are all good work-arounds. But at the end of the day, the user still has to choose between a system that encourages data entry errors, or rearranging and renumbering their chart of accounts to suit the program. > This seems to me to be a pretty flexible arrangement. It obviously would not > be a huge effort or a great deal of code to put blank boxes up, but that > would altready be _less_ flexible for user configuration. I never said that blank boxes was the optimal solution. I just said that it was better than a system that encourages data entry errors. > I guess that doing > so would result in an error every time one was left blank, so no code would > be needed to prevent posting without a selection. To give user-configured > defaults chosen other than by sequence, must add to the code, comlexity and > configuration file size. Probably not by much, but bloat is often just the > accumulation of many little things - a bit like my overdraft. Its not bloat if it does a useful job! Bloat is the accumulation of features that nobody wants or uses. Is data validation "bloat"? Is error checking "bloat"? What about memory management? Is it "bloat" to use a relational database when flat files are available? > I, personally, would vote for no change, but a more detailed user manual with > advice on issues like this. But users don't read user manuals. We can complain about that fact as much as we like, but it is a fact. And who can blame them? This isn't brain surgery, its just accounting, and if an experienced accounts-person (let alone a qualified accountant) has to read the manual to make sense of the program, then there is something wrong with the program. -- Steven D'Aprano Operations Manager Cybersource Pty Ltd, ACN 053 904 082 Level 9, 140 Queen St, Melbourne VIC 3000 Tel: +61 3 9642 5997 Fax: +61 3 96425998 Web: http://www.cyber.com.au ------------------------------------------------------- This sf.net email is sponsored by: OSDN - Tired of that same old cell phone? Get a new here for FREE! https://www.inphonic.com/r.asp?r=sourceforge1&refcode1=vs3390 ------------------------------------------------------- (un)subscribe: http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/sql-ledger-users Archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/
