> Well, perhaps I can shed some light on this question, as I wrote the
> current AERC program and have been maintaining it for the past dozen
> years.
>
> There is more involved than just keeping members names and addresses,
> a ride list, and some points. The AERC has many ride formats and
> many awards programs, all of which have to be kept track of,
> permanently. There are about 500 rides each year. The office has
> three networked workstations (plus a server).
>
> To give just one example of the complexity involved: lets say
> there's a ride with a 50 and a 100 on Saturday and another 50 on
> Sunday -- three separate rides, but one "event." A man starts the
> 100 on Saturday and is pulled; his daughter starts the ride on Sunday
> and completes successfully. The computer must determine that two
> members of the same family, one a parent and the other that parent's
> child, started two rides at the same event -- and then credit the
> family with 50 miles toward the Bill Thornburg Award. If the man
> completed and his daughter was pulled, they would get 100 miles, and
> if the both completed they would get 150 miles.
>
> We have a number of awards programs like this, which require
> correlating various factors from various sources to determine if
> points/miles are awarded or not.
>
> The current size of the database is only about 50 Megabytes, so disk
> space is not a problem.
>
> The current program is written in Advanced Revelation, and dates back
> to 1984 (at that time, Revelation was the only database program
> running on PC's with the power to do what we needed). It has become
> inadequate and difficult to maintain. It MUST be replaced.
>
> I offered to write a completely new program, in a modern
> Windows-based database system, three years ago. The office felt
> that there were too many problems with me living 2,000 miles away
> from the office, that they needed someone they could get in the
> office on short notice when there was a problem. I understand the
> staffs' frustration when I could not get back to them in a timely
> fashion, as was often the case. They were offered a substantial
> donation toward a custom program from a California programmer, and
> decided to go with that. Unfortunately, it has taken much longer to
> write than they anticipated, and the cost has long since far
> exceeded the donation.
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> --
>
> Joe Long Rainbow Connection Arabians
> PC/LAN Manager home of Kahlil Khai
> Calhoun Community College AERC Hall of Fame horse
> jlong@hiwaay.net 11,475 miles completed
>
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