Intense amounts of work
Added 2024-04-12 15:20:17 +0000 UTCWith the acquisition of some new names, I had to acknowledge that my database was a mess. Most of the names I've collected over the past decade(s) are unattributed, unresearched, unverified, and have no validating citations.
So I'm remedying that.
Over the past week I've acquired original source material for many of the scale namers (like Messiaen, Cochrane, Tcherepnin, Schenker, Bedwell, Zeitler, Pecot etc); and I've created a system that parses the names directly from the source documentation. Then, those sources are associated with the canonical list of names to provide citations. Errata are handled not in the parsing system, but rather in the association methods -- so I have precise documentation of errors in the original sources, and I can prevent those from ever "polluting" the lists with their errata.
This of course means doing not only a ton of "grunt work" parsing source material (I'm getting help from GPT writing complex regular expressions), but I'm also embarking on a lot of background research to make sure that names are accurate, correct, spelled properly, and have attribution to the inventors where appropriate.
The results won't show on the website until the project is complete, or nearly so. The material you see on the scale pages, that's all cached... I build those pages as static files with a snapshot of my data. That way, I can screw around with the underlying software without it breaking things online.
This work will have a positive impact on the book, but more immediately you'll see a lot more depth and rigour in the messy collection of names on the website.
I hope you're all doing well and enjoying the warmer weather (in the northern hemisphere).
Cheers ~ ian
