The first step to database designing
Introduction
Databases are omnipresent everywhere, many a times without us realizing their presence. Take the example of a telephone directory, it is also a database, but we rarely realize it, it stores numbers, grids, addresses, names. Databases are convenient in a way that they allow us to quickly search the information and also are great for keeping the history. Most websites use content management systems (CMS) and a combination of database.
Databases contain at the atomic level, tables, which are used to hold information about any thing that the database comprises of.
Fields comprise of the tables, these are instruments that tell us what exactly is kept inside the database, e.g. addresses, name, phone numbers.
The data in its actuality is stored in forms of rows.
A complete database is actually a lot of spreadsheets linked together in a way.
These databases allow of edition, deletion, updating and retrieval of data very easily.
designing these databases can actually be quite a tricky proposition requiring immense patience and time, you need to know exactly what u are doing and what u need at the end.
CMS as an example we can easily figure out how to compile a good database. Tis doesn’t apply just to the CMS design but any kind of an application using a database.
The first step to this is to list the features that u want so that we can easily compile what we need for the database.
- Do you want people to write comments?
- Do you want just a news section, or do you want blogs as well?
- Do you want different categories?
- Do you want many authors or contributors to your site ?
if you have a news area, e.g. the sports sites have
the basic news will have to be there as well as the extra tidbits.
- Will multiple authors contribute to a news item or will it be just one?
- Will news items be in multiple categories or will they only be allowed in one particular category?
- Will news expire after a certain amount of time?
- Will news need to be authorised before going live?
The most important thing is not to rush your database, as it will be very difficult to correct it later, and will be costly as well.
Filed under: Databases
