[Roadster] Converting TIGER data to a MySQL database

[Jeff Garrett]

On 4:57 PM 2/13/2006 Barry Gould wrote:
> ISTM that there could be a POI table per user, but in the same 
> database and datastore as the other tables.
> Of course, this would require someone with MySQL Create permissions 
> to setup a new user

I think this makes it harder to package (ignoring permissions issues for
now).  It is not unreasonable that individual users may want to update
the data...  (This goes double for POI sets, but even TIGER data may be
wrong, and it doesn't include one-way street data...)  Should a package
update (from a new TIGER set, or updated POI package) overwrite user
changes?  I suppose we could just have a flag that says whether that
thing has been modified and make the install scripts smart enough to
check that.  (And what about downgrading or uninstalling packages
cleanly... redo the user changes if we overwrote them?)

If we use multiple datastores however this problem goes away.  There's a
(or many) per-user databases and Roadster treats them preferentially to
the system-installed ones.  Then the package update scripts only have to
be dumb:  overwrite the system datastores with the new copies.  Local
changes are not overwritten.

> Or, maybe just one POI table, and a 'favorites' table per user, or 
> one favorites table with a 'user' column (then this wouldn't require 
> any system privileges to add a new user, but a malicious user could 
> potentially read and/or delete other users favorites. I'm not sure 
> this is a real concern though... roadster isn't typically going to be 
> run on a multi-user server, just on private of family laptops, etc.).

Well, my two schools have both had thin client setups, and this isn't
something one should rule out though I agree it is uncommon.  (If I had
Roadster installed, and it were capable of such...   If I were on an
unfamiliar part of campus -- this is pretty much all of it -- and wanted
a cup of coffee -- there are literally like 100 student-run places to
get coffee -- I could go to one of the nearby terminals and pull up a
map.)

This is not as serious a concern though as packaging.  I agree that most
people will be using it on a private machine.

-- 
Jeff
JID: jeff at jgarrett.org
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