Request notifications
built on top of the openacs core as well as the core itself, and have
come up wondering why is there no consistent way to store detailed
user info? This is not so much of a critique, but more of an
inquisition as to why a certain data model was chosen.
For example, the ecommerce package has its own tables for shipping
address (which most of the time would either be a home or business
address). Likewise, a package from ybos for event registrations
stores this info in its own tables, and dotlrn stores user info in
separate table. Why wouldnÂt this information be stored in the
acs_attributes table, much like the personal bio is?... where the
acs_attribute bio references the acs_attribute_values tableÂ
and then
the packages that need this commonly used information would reference
it, and if those attributes didnÂt exist it would create themÂ
I realize the reason to separate out custom info that only pertains
to a certain package, for example, the cost of an item in the
ecommerce package is something that only pertains to the ecommerce
packageÂ
but home address, city, phone number, business address,
city, fax, etcÂ
to me seem like things that should be centralized.
Could somebody please explain to me the thinking behind the de-
centralization for these things?