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Re: [seul-sci] collection management

Dear Pete:

 > Unless you're doing really intricate presentation work, you might want to
 > think of avoiding X servers completely.

Uh... thanks. Why? 


 > This may be a bit of a reach, but why not try to deliver the information
 > using a combination of MySQL as the database, php to translate between the
 > DB and the apache, and get apache to present everything to the local network
 > via a web browser?

Your approach is *so totally different* to the one I was advocanting for the lab: MySQL, Apache, and *Python* as glue! ;)  The problem is that I think it will need too much time to tinker it in place -- I think I can do it, but my advisor would rather have me working in my research. And to make it worse, he is RIGHT! He has this funny idea that my PhD subject is NOT Linux ;-P


 > The upside of this approach is that it allows you to have pretty much any
 > client you want, be they macs, Winboxes, Linboxes or other Unices without
 > any extra work on your part.

Yep, pretty much my argument.


Right now, we are to put the stuff in Excel -- I *insisted* it being able to export it as text for a flatfile (it works). How difficult would be to translate this flatfile(s) into RDB tables? Will I need to write a script?

So far, Excel on Macs is not bad, but I know it just won't scale, and it's too rigid. If we can use it for a while and THEN turn it into MySQL on Linux, it would be fine. The other option in some crappy commercial bogo-database for Macintoys -- a dead end for sure. 

The major issue here is the data model -- I just need to be sure it is flexible enough to scale and change with our changing needs.


Thanks for the help :) Best regards, Gustavo.


BTW: please add this to the sci-soft wisht list: Phylogeny software!!!


  .~. 
  /V\     Free science and free software are just two aspects 
 // \\    of the same complex reality: long-term human survival. 
/(   )\   Support humankind--use LINUX! <http://www.linux.org/> 
-^^-^^--------------------------------------------------------------
Gustavo Alcides Concheiro Pérez  <gacp@biocomp.unl.edu> 
<http://www.museum.unl.edu/GO-lab/people/gacp/> 
School of Biological Sciences, University of Nebraska--Lincoln 
348 Manter Hall, Lincoln NE 68588-0118, USA