CompuServe Messages

Hi, Angus– I wonder if making the mineral database relational shrinks the size of the download. The redundancy that separate lookup tables can remove should also be removed in compression of a flat ASCII database, if the compression algorithm is good enough. What I hope for from making a related set of databases out of the one is more like keeping it smaller after decompression, and perhaps allowing more uses. As we add more fields with more info for each of 3200+ minerals, the uncompressed database could be quite demanding in disk space and RAM. Separated lookup tables might become parts of other relational databases; the example I have in mind is that a locales list from a relational version of a minerals/localities database could be valuable in building a collection catalog, allowing one to avoid typing in (and misspelling) listed localities when cataloging a specimen. –Doug