Benchmark Log Entries Are Not Sorted Anymore

[+theboonieman]

FYI: I noticed the benchmark log entries are no longer displayed in chronological order under Details for Benchmarks. They appear to be random now. See AD7283for an example.

[Jeremy]

It was interesting since there was apparently never a sort feature for benchmark logs but it has been corrected. Thanks for pointing this out.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

I liked it the way it was.

 

An example is this benchmark that I went to in 8/2002 since it had not been logged here on GC.com so my log would be a 'FTF'.

 

A few months later, someone logged the same benchmark after I logged it, but put an earlier date; 11/2001.

 

I was happy that my log was listed at the bottom (first) anyway. This situation lasted a few years.

 

There's chronological order and there's chronological order.

 

Now, the benchmark logs are not in chronological order of their being logged!

[Jeremy]

Can't please everyone

[+The Leprechauns]

So, now the benchmark logs follow the same display rules as the geocaching logs. Seems rather.... consistent.

[+Black Dog Trackers]

Yep, it's impossible to please everyone.

No terribly big deal.

 

The Leprechauns - yet, consistency is often suboptimal. In this case, the 'unsorted' version displayed two pieces of information - the chronological order of logging, via the order of appearance, and the chronological order of visiting, via the dates. Now, that has been degraded to just one category of information. Seems rather .... suboptimal.

Edited October 28, 2005 by Black Dog Trackers

[+DreadPirateRoberts]

There's chronological order and there's chronological order. 

With some databases and data structures in programming languages (hashes in Perl, for instance), there is no guarantee of the order that you'll get entries out if you don't specify a sort method. However, in practice, in certain situations, you will often find that the entries will come out in the same order that you put them in. Often, this is simply a side effect of the underlying method for storing and retrieving the data.

 

As a programmer, it can be easy to forget about sorting the records when they come out so neatly at first. But then at a later date, something can happen (database rebuild, data grows to a certain size, who knows) and the order will change, and it will become apparent that it was never really sorted to begin with, it was just a happy coincidence.

 

I have no idea if something like that happened here, just a thought.

[+mini cacher]

I've never found a benchmark yet (I've looked at few and thought about giving it a go), but it seems that the issue of the order of "the visiting it" and the order of "the logging it" would be the same for benchmarks as it is for geocaches. So if this way is suboptimal for one it would be suboptimal for both... which interestingly would at least make then consistently consitent.