File store (was Re: Salutations)

[David Merrill]

On Tue, Dec 12, 2000 at 12:35:45PM -0500, Derek Atkins wrote:
> David Merrill <dmerrill@lupercalia.net> writes:
> 
> [snip]
> 
> > But I do take issue with the argument that period closing, and the
> > transfer of the account balance, is the way to accomplish this. It is
> > certainly one way, but there are others. Let me propose one other way
> > for your consideration.
> > 
> > Let's say we have a table that looks like:
> > 
> > account_num
> > date
> > closing_balance
> > 
> > Each record represents the end-of-the-day balance for the given
> > account on the given date, which means the balance after all
> > transactions for that day have been calculated.
> > 
> [snip]
> >
> > Does this accomplish the same thing you were proposing? Am I
> > understanding your intent now?
> 
> Unfortunately I'm not convinced it completely solves the problem.  The
> problem with any checkpointing is that if any transaction changes
> before the checkpoint, then you have to modify all checkpoints that
> have occurred after the transaction.
> 
> The nice side-effect of "closing the books" is that theoretically all
> transactions dated prior to the closing are considered 'immutable.'
> Perhaps this is just a different type of checkpoint?  I'm not sure.
> 
> If we do have the ability to make transactions prior to a particular
> date 'immutable', then we only have to worry about checkpoint
> consistency for dates after that date.  Perhaps we need the notion of
> 'closing the books', whereby transactions become immutable, and
> 'checkpointing', where transactions are still mutable so the
> checkpoints may change as transactions get updated.

aisb, I consider the issue of closing the books and making all
transactions prior to that immutable to be completely orthogonal to how
the running total is determined. I am proposing a solution to the
maintenance of running balances that scales well.

Maybe I'm going off on a tangent, but I'm thinking in terms of db
schema, since that is the task I've taken on myself.

I don't have an opinion on whether or not to close the books because
I'm too ignorant about accounting practice. I have two semesters of
college accounting, so I know basic concepts but that's it. I can say
on my own account (tee hee!) that I scored top of my class in those
classes, but that does not an accountant make.


-- 
Dr. David C. Merrill                     http://www.lupercalia.net
Linux Documentation Project                dmerrill@lupercalia.net
Collection Editor & Coordinator            http://www.linuxdoc.org
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