dhis2-devs team mailing list archive

[Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 28 April 2011 10:09, Hieu Dang Duy <hieu.hispvietnam@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> We have to be careful in misunderstanding of the meaning of alternative
> name. The I18n translation functionality which is only the support one for
> Multilingual. But in this case alternative name which could understand that
> a another name of a specified object. One data element, ie. it could be
> having many other alternative name. I'm not familiar with the health words.
>
> But for example in Chemical field, if you say CH3-OH so everyone would know
> that is Methanol or Metilic alcohol.
>
> Just a small comment.

Fair point.  AlternativeName does invite the user to use it like this
in the absence of any other guideline.

In general many things do have many names (I am Bob, my passport says
Robert and the University of Oslo has me as Bo).  What is important on
the output side is to know the context in which a particular name is
appropriate.  In the I18n case, the context is determined by locale
which seems to me to be the right way of determining which alternative
name to use (assuming, as Ola says, that it works).

I am not sure if there is really a requirement for supporting other
sorts of naming contexts - I haven't seen one, but there might be.
For example different programs might have different names for the same
indicator.  Facilities are perhaps an interesting case because they do
occasionally get renamed so you might have current name and old name.
Which is not a very serious problem when we don't use the name as the
primary identifier.

It would be easy enough to have a table for alternative names of any
and all identifiable objects.  In fact it might even be a good idea.
What would be more complicated is to decide the context in which to
use which name.  The simplest approach would be to not try and be too
artificailly intelligent about it and provide the report designer with
the set of alternative names to pick from if he/she so chose.

But without a clear requirement there's no need to make our lives
complicated.  So to go back to my original question, do we have an
existing use case (outside of I18n) where people are using
alternativename differently?  eg synonymns for methanol.  My guess is
that this is more a requirement in clinical systems than in aggregate
reporting of datelements and indicators.  Except perhaps facilities
...

Cheers
Bob

>
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 1:37 PM, Ola Hodne Titlestad <olati@xxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>>
>> Not 100% sure, but I think Alternative Name is used to store the English
>> translations of the Swahili data elements in the Tanzanian databases, as an
>> ad-hoc i18n approach. This can of course be replaced by a using the i18n
>> functionality (given that it works properly, and that it is also possible to
>> show lists/reports etc. showing both languages).
>>
>> Ola
>> --------
>> ----------------------------------
>> Ola Hodne Titlestad (Mr)
>> HISP
>> Department of Informatics
>> University of Oslo
>>
>> Mobile: +47 48069736
>> Home address: Vetlandsvn. 95B, 0685 Oslo, Norway. Googlemaps link
>>
>>
>> On 27 April 2011 17:04, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 27 April 2011 15:24, Jason Pickering <jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> wrote:
>>> > +1 from me as well, assuming that we can migrate the existing
>>> > alternative names to whatever object replaces it.
>>>
>>> To what extent to we have existing alternative names?
>>>
>>> >Also, if you can
>>> > look into how  we can match on these names during import, similar to
>>> > DHIS 1.4, this would be very useful in hetereogeneous, data
>>> > warehousing situations where multiple data bases feed DHIS2, but which
>>> > may have slightly different names of the same data element.
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On 4/27/11, Bob Jolliffe <bobjolliffe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>> >> 2011/4/27 Saptarshi Purkayastha <sunbiz@xxxxxxxxx>:
>>> >>> I would actually suggest that multiple alternative names to be added
>>> >>> for a
>>> >>> dataelement or indicator.
>>> >>> It would be similar to the representing synonyms for a data element
>>> >>> or
>>> >>> indicator.
>>> >>
>>> >> Saptarshi I think I agree with you in principle.  And probably the
>>> >> best way to work towards this is to start by removing the hard coded
>>> >> alternative name property. So +1 from me to the proposal.
>>> >>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> ---
>>> >>> Regards,
>>> >>> Saptarshi PURKAYASTHA
>>> >>>
>>> >>> My Tech Blog:  http://sunnytalkstech.blogspot.com
>>> >>> You Live by CHOICE, Not by CHANCE
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> 2011/4/27 Lars Helge Øverland <larshelge@xxxxxxxxx>
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> Hi all, we are currently investigating the core domain model in
>>> >>>> order to
>>> >>>> see how we can make the entities have a consistent set of
>>> >>>> properties.
>>> >>>> In that regard we are proposing to remove the alternative name
>>> >>>> property
>>> >>>> of
>>> >>>> data element and indicator entities. It seems this property is a
>>> >>>> ad-hoc
>>> >>>> legacy internationalization effort and not really useful. Would it
>>> >>>> be
>>> >>>> okay
>>> >>>> to remove it?
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> regards, Lars
>>> >>>>
>>> >>>> _______________________________________________
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>>> >>>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>>
>>> >>> _______________________________________________
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>>> >>>
>>> >>
>>> >> _______________________________________________
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>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > Jason P. Pickering
>>> > email: jason.p.pickering@xxxxxxxxx
>>> > tel:+260974901293
>>> >
>>>
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>>
>>
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>
>
>
> --
> Good health !
>
>