Well, I'm going to take the pedantic-ness of this to the next level :)

I am the author so I'm at fault for not describing the situation more accurately.

The photos are snapshots and don't have to be "good", just good enough for reference shots. With that said, it's not ten minutes per model, it's more like a minute per model. If it were ten minutes per model, then this solution wouldn't be needed because the 1 minute it takes to pop out the memory card and transfer the files is relatively short compared to the 10 minutes of shooting time.

That said, there's also no time/necessity for model releases. I don't use the photos for commercial reasons. If the process were to include model releases though, there's still the problem of associating photo to signed release (which would most definitely require more error checking, though not that much)

(since the photos just need to be usable, there's never been a case when I've had to do a retake. I might take an extra shot if I see that the eyes were closed in the previous shot. But it's amazing how that happens only once or twice out of literally a thousand takes.

The critical point that I could've made clearer: the sign-in happens at the photographer's station. You're completely right that if the time is recorded at a different point, such as when the model first arrives, then there's no linkage between photo and model.

So the devil is in the details, which kind of underscores my point. I'm able to come up with a simplified, low maintenance algorithm because I've done this before. If you gave this problem to an outside programmer, he/she might introduce logical, yet unnecessary steps. There are enough unique, bespoke batches of menial, easily automated work that don't need much code at all, just a mindset that recognizes that a problem could be solved by code.

While it seems ridiculous, even from my standpoint, to think it useful for all photographers to learn code...who knows? It definitely would've been silly 10 years ago. But now all files are digital. The problem I describe here is a microcosm, from what I understand, of the photo industry in general, which wastes considerable amount of time of repetitive, error-prone manual processes.

So it's not necessary for every -- or any -- photographer working for a photo company to know how to code a solution here. but again, think of how much time is wasted coding in features/fallbacks because of the gap in communication between programmer and the clients who actually have to execute that workflow, every day. More frequently, in virtually every kind of company, these problems are never recognized and/or fixed in the first place.

You and I would agree that this, again, does not require coding skills from everyone to fix. I differ in that from what I've seen, programming is almost the only way to ground these concepts -- this is an inference from the many, many very logical scientists, analysts, and researchers that I deal with who do not get simple binary/boolean concepts. I'm arguing that if there was a coding curriculum, even if it were just a single class just as most students have a typing/wordprocessing class, then who knows what overall benefits and knowledge might come from it.