Re: storing survey answers of different data types

On Apr 23, 12:48 pm, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:

>
> It depends on your requirements. For one set of requirements,
> "convenient" means in the dbms. For another set of requirements,
> "convenient" means in a text file somewhere. For another set of
> requirements, "convenient" means the first column of a spreadsheet. For
> another set of requirements, "convenient" means written on paper in a
> carefully guarded box to be gathered up after use and secured again.

Okay. I'm going to say this with the assumption that user requirements are not a formal language like math, programs, or DDL.

How does one get from the sloppy human language to a DDL? What kind of requirement says to you " This calls for a database?" Just simply saying "We want this done in a database"?

You mention different things being more convenient on paper, on a spreadsheet, etc. How does one get out of convenience into "must be" or "really won't work if you try it that way"?

>
> Given that databases did not exist for 5 million years of human
> evolution and we all managed to get here, I would not argue for the
> necessity of putting anything in a database.

Okay. I think I see what you're doing here. Databases are not *necessary* for anything. What sort of requirements would cause you to say "this is optimally done in a relational database"? What's an example?

>
> > Can you help me understand how requirements help me decide what
> > belongs *necessarily* in the database, and what doesn't?
>
> See above at "evolution".

Okay, can you help me understand why, in the model that Roy proposed, he chose to say that certain things belonged in a table, certain other data belonged in multiple tables, where to keep a template --" We don't store the template anywhere--maybe we should but we don't. " None of it was strictly necessary. Why did he make the proposal that he did? How do we go from requirements to a DDL? Received on Wed Apr 29 2009 - 15:34:48 CEST