Ray Saintonge wrote:
Of course we've had unplanned downtime that has
lasted for more than
an hour. Then too en:wikipedia has so far resisted converting to
Unicode. :-)
All I'm saying is that time is an important parameter, and that you
can calculate how much time will be needed, and set a limit to what is
acceptable (if it means downtime).
If you have lots of data (e.g. the English "old" table), it is often
an advantage if you can convert one piece at a time. I guess this
could be done for converting the old table to Unicode. You could add
column (or a separate table) that indicates if entry X of the old
table is in Unicode, alter the software to look in this column, then
start the conversion one article at a time as a low priority
background process. After the conversion is completed, the software
can be altered back again.
That strategy would be the total opposite of defining a unified export
dump format and stop everything for a week to do a dump, convert, and
import. Just like a pipeline and a tanker ship are two different ways
to transport oil.
--
Lars Aronsson (lars(a)aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik -
http://aronsson.se