Missing Patrick O'Brian Data

While working on some new data for the Surgeon's Mate I discovered, to my horror, that when I had moved my data model from the old pathalogical per-ship approach to a more sensible per-book version, I lost some data. I thought I had been pretty methodical about moving each of the 4835 map data points from the old system to the new one.

I have all the old data backed up, so when I noticed one of my favorite quotes from HMS Surprise was missing, I was able to write a script (thanks Python) to do an exhaustive compare between the new data and the old. I found my missing quote and a few others besides:

'What were you saying about the Hellespont?' he asked.
'How wide is it?'
'Why, not above a mile or so - point-blank range from either side.'
'The next time we go up the Mediterranean,' said Stephen, 'I shall swim it.'

Permalink - Tags: Patrick O'Brian,Development