On 8/05/2012 11:16 PM, Robert Molyneux wrote:
>
> Then I am interested is understanding what the various GRUNTS, GUFFAWS,
> WHEEZES, SNEEZES and HIC_COUGHS mean - where do real men get their
> naming conventions?

Did someone have the flu when designing the original app?
>
> I am chasing down what documentation about the columns and their
> contents is available - bit like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I wish you luck.

> - given four fields called LATITUDE, LONGITUDE and EASTING, NORTHING,
> what are the chances of reliably knowing where 9,000 road bridges are
> located? Or 80,000 culverts?

If you rely on the standard formula for converting Northing and Easting 
on the Oz grid to latitude and longitude, buckley's. With latitude and 
longitude, I have passed addresses to Google and had (some would call) 
fairly close results come back; when I did a reverse lookup (on Google) 
using the data provided by Google, the result was always within 150 
metres. If I converted northings and eastings to latitude and longitude, 
well, some results weren't even in the right suburb. I relied on the 
northings and eastings provided by UBD. Where did yours come from? 
Surveyors? How accurate was the survey? Was it perhaps close to 
lunchtime? Or 4:45PM?

I once had some land on the edge of a state forest re-surveyed by the 
licensed shire surveyor because there were falling-down 100yo fences 
everywhere. Does "Five acres or thereabouts" sound accurate to you?

> - given a field called VERT_CLEAR and a field called SIGNAGE, what are
> the chances of a bridge with VERT_CLEAR of 4.5 metres being signposted
> with a sign saying "Clearance 5 metres".

Oh, quite high, I'd say. That is, given my experience driving on 
back_country roads in NSW.

> So far I can open a tcursor on an Oracle table, and copy the contents,
> with suitable transformations, into a Paradox table, that I can then
> slice and dice.

You can download a replication tool from SQL Maestro (or Navicat) and 
use the Paradox ODBC driver (the one that came with Paradox) to just 
replicate the portions of the database you want into Paradox tables (and 
vice versa). I think there's a 30 day trial on it so it should do what 
you want within the time limit.

> I do NOT want to use the Oracle tables in forms or reports.
>
> I know I can use MS Access (and I am) but it is such a clunker compared
> to Paradox and VM ProView!
>
> And I want to use an existing Paradox asset management system as a
> demonstration / prototype of asset management functionality, so I want
> to grab some real data to show users how it can be done.

-- 
Tom Krieg

---------------
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