Re: I have read tons of theory...but still...one question

From: Laconic2 <laconic2_at_comcast.net>
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 07:30:21 -0400
Message-ID: <dYadnSL2tZlGyu_cRVn-pA@comcast.com>

Kostas,

(PersonID, PhoneID) represents a many-to-many relationship between persons and phones.

As long as we are going to talk about "entities", we might as well talk about "relationships" as well.
When you get down to designing your relations, it's sort of a moot point, because you will use relations to hold data about entities, data about weak entites, and data about relationships.

The advantages of using Entity-Relationship (ER or ERD) modeling to think about the problem, is that it allows you to distinguish between ANALYSIS and DESIGN. Your ER model captures what you think you know about persons and phones. That's analysis.

Your relational model pertains to the solution, not the problem. That's design.

Design issues and analysis issues have been smashed together in this discussion. You can do that if you want, but I recommend keeping them separate. Received on Sun Oct 17 2004 - 06:30:21 CDT