Fake columns

[nevrome]

As discussed in #16 and on mattermost, there are a number of columns in various tables of Pandora, that only seem to serve as placeholders to be filled from other tables up- or downstream in the Pandora hierarchy. Imho they are pointless and confusing for data analysis.

I see three options how to address that:

1. Do nothing and keep the fake columns around (as suggested by @ivelsko for the ethics columns)
2. Populate them from the actual data columns in the other tables (as suggested by @trhermes)
3. Delete them in the process of and behind get_df()

I don't like 1. for obvious reasons (and generally consider the ethics issue solved with the startup message). 2. is tricky to pull off and would force a lot of data download even if one only wants a single table. So 3. it is, in my opinion.

What do you folks say? (including @jfy133)

[trhermes]

What are the fake columns doing? I am also noticing now that pandora_tables() no longer works, giving: Error: attempt to apply non-function.

[nevrome]

My understanding is this:

In the web interface Pandora has information that is displayed across different levels of the database hierarchy. So if something is Ethically dangerous, than this is displayed in different views and on multiple levels on the website, which is good.

In the database the information for that only really exists in TAB_Sample, though. So unfortunately the front-end sugar involves a nasty hack in the the database back-end: The respective columns do exist as well in the other tables relevant for displaying, but there they are empty (or weirdly filled). That's what I call a "fake column".