Semi-OT: Database for "average" users

[billt-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org]

On Sat, Apr 30, 2005 at 03:36:30PM -0400, phil wrote:
> On Apr 30, 2005, at 1:38 PM, billt-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org wrote:
> 
> > The real problem is that a database is something that provides you a 
> > set of mechanisms to represent your data. It isn't anymore a solution 
> > than a hammer, a screw driver and saw is to the problem of 
> > homelessness.
> 
> Right, but the same kind of analogy could be made regarding a word 
> processor.  You still need to know how to structure the information 
> well beyond the hints that the software provides.
> 
> The difference -- as I see it -- is that with WP software, you can 
> write a shopping list without knowing anything about paragraphs, 
> footnotes, macros, whatever...but they're available when you need them. 
>   With DB software, it doesn't seem that there's any provision for "just 
> getting something simple accomplished" before leaping off into the 
> world of normalization, foreign keys, and the rest of the jargon.  
> Maybe that's just the way it is and can't be any other way, but I do 
> wonder.
> 
I think you just answered your own questions. Databases are not meant to do something simple. The things you want when you have something simple to do is a spreadsheet. The caveat there is knowing when something is simple and when it only seems simple.

Bill

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