Mobile Phone plan calculator

[psylencer]

Hi guys,

I'm working on my first ASP web site. The idea of the site is to calculate
which mobile phone plan is right for you. The idea is that the user answers a
few questions about their calling habits, and the server calculates the
ammount of talk time for each plan and then recommends on or two.

I've created 2 excell sheets already. One is a user input sheet, the other
is a database of all the plans available.

At the moment the excell sheet works like this. The user selects a rate
plan, enters in their details and calling habits, and a total talk time is
displayed on the bottom of the page. I want to go one step further.

I want the ASP page im working on to calculate the total talk time for ALL
the plans in my database (based on the users input) and then recommend the 3
with the most talk time.

As you can probably tell, I'm completely lost. All of the tutorials I've
seen are simple "add this to, delete this from" database blah blah. I need
help!



Psy

 

[Ray Costanzo [MVP]]

Go in small steps. Most operations do involve adding, deleting, and
updating from a database. Move the data from Excel into a database, and it
may start coming together.

Ray at work

 

[Firas S Assaad]

Hi,
Since this is your first ASP page, take my advice and dont start with
complicated projects. Trust me, if you do you will soon hate ASP. That
what happened with me when i started programming. I had hundereds of
ideas in my head that i wanted to do in programming, i tried doing the
hardest, when my father knew that, he told me to start with the
simplest projects and step by step your mind will start accepting doing
complicated projects.
as they say, "you cant walk without crawling first"

And one more thing, since your a beginer, dont count on forums. Do
stuff yourself, test every single things yourself, and record the
result, dont go online and search for answers, find them your self.

This is my advice to you. And its your choice. GoodLuck



Best Regards
Firas S Assaad

 

[psylencer]

Thanks for the help guys. I should yet you know, I'm very familiar with SQL
just not ASP. Thanks for the warning though. I dont need to know exactly how
to do it, just the logic behind the idea (Which bends my mind). I'll figure
the rest out myslef.
Still need help.

Thanks
Psy

 

[psylencer]

Thanks for the help guys. I should yet you know, I'm very familiar with SQL
just not ASP. Thanks for the warning though. I dont need to know exactly how
to do it, just the logic behind the idea (Which bends my mind). I'll figure
the rest out myslef.
Still need help.

Thanks
Psy

 

[Mike Brind]

The logic will only bend your brain all the while that you don't break the
problem down into small parts. Do you really need the ASP logic to perform
your calculations? Since you are familiar with SQL, try putting your data
in Access and see how much of the calculations can be done there (SELECT TOP
3, calculated fields.. etc).

The one thing you haven't done is to detail what exactly you need help with.
The reason I suggest that you haven't done this is because you haven't
analysed the problem thoroughly yet, so you haven't actually identified the
steps you need to take and in which order you need to take them.

Create a flow chart/list of the steps that need to be taken to arrive at the
final result, including branches where different conditions require
different input/output. Design your datastore on the basis of the inputs
and outputs. Then start coding at the beginning and take it one step at a
time, testing as you go, and building on each successfully tested step.

There is no such thing as a "complicated" project, just projects where the
required planning hasn't been done properly

 

[psylencer]

I was thinking just that as I was falling asleep last night. The idea is to
do as much as possible in access, then do as little as possible in ASP. I
think I've figured it out.
SO here we go,

Each mobile plan in the database will have entry fields for each of the
users resposes. Then all I have to do is cross reference the details to the
users input and do the caluclations, the results of which will be displayed
in a single column, then the best 3 of which (in terms of time) are returned
to the user along with plan names, Carrier names, cost etc.

Thankyou so much for the help.