Re: database design

HanJeong Lee wrote:

> is it realistic to construct a database for
> an organization without any application system
> in mind?
> can a database be designed seperately?

Absolutely. Will it be any good? It depends.

First, there are certain things about, say, a YMCA that are invariant: you have members, you have programs, you have facilities and equipment, people pay money for various things, and so on. Ditto for car dealerships, hospitals, and so on.

The more you know about the organization, the fewer changes you'll need to make when you get some requirements for applications.

And the more experience you have in writing database apps for similar organizations, the fewer changes you'll have to make when applications come along.

Is it possible to determine all and only the data, the tables, and the relations you'll ever need for every single application a given organization could ever want? Possibly. Is it worth the time? Probably not, at least not in comparison to the time it takes to gather requirements.

-- 
What we're looking for: destinations.
What we end up getting: journeys.
Bob Crispen
bob.crispen_at_boeing.com