On 15 Aug 2021, at 7:47, Bret Stern wrote:
> I will say this business has been behind in the attributes game. Plus there are many "artsy" vendors who can hardly
speakin these terms, and don't publish to us, so we do the best we can.
>
> Getting vendors to supply the basic values is a struggle.
>
I suspect you have already found all vendors reliably supply two values: how many (a dimensionless parameter), and how
much(mostly in units of dollar) 😉
After that there may be length width and thickness values specified with (hopefully) the same units ± weight (per unit
orbox?) ± allowance for grout/joining (in case your application is going to be used as an aid in estimating quantities
needed)
The truly artistic supplier will refrain from making anything the same and your customer will be expected to buy the
itemfirst and plan their project around it.
One possible data wrangling scheme would be to give each item a catalogue number (yours) — Just noticed Adrain saying
somethingsimilar so apologies for the overlap.
The vendor_spec table would capture the vendor’s identifier, description and supplied dimensions (with a units column).
The dimensions_view (suggest a materialised view) would carry the dimension information in converted form, e.g., mm:
numeric(8,3)
Once the conversions are setup the customer can be supplied with dimensions in the system of their choice and you have
asensible common point reference for any rankings.
When I first saw this thread I thought you were getting into metal dimensions and started to wonder if your next phase
wasto “organise” bolts according to diameter length and thread… you have picked the easier course, the other is a
nightmare,e.g., https://www.americanmachinetools.com/machinist_tables.htm
Gavan Schneider
——
Gavan Schneider, Sodwalls, NSW, Australia
Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem —
neat,plausible, and wrong.
— H. L. Mencken, 1920