Semi-OT: Database for "average" users

[phil]

On Apr 30, 2005, at 3:54 PM, billt-lxSQFCZeNF4 at public.gmane.org wrote:

> On Sat, Apr 30, 2005 at 03:36:30PM -0400, phil wrote:
>>
>>   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.
>>
> 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.

I don't really buy the idea that a spreadsheet is functionally 
equivalent to a simple database.  But ignoring that for the moment, 
there's still the problem of different levels of complexity involving 
projects that people agree *do* require a database.  Among those, 
there's still an issue of having an expertise requirement that's not 
proportional to the complexity of the problem.   At the moment, I can't 
think of another class of software that I've ever used that's as 
forbidding to beginners...not development tools, not even application 
servers.

Since Lotus Agenda had some features of self-organization and a great 
deal of beginner ease of use, I keep watching the Chandler project with 
hope.  The overview sounds good, but the implementation details don't 
seem much beyond Palm Desktop.

........................
Phillip Mills
Multi-platform software development
(416) 224-0714

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