Re: Newbie/Student - help in assignment

Totally agree with the above points by Mr Meelon.

I did a vast amount of study using Structured Systems Analysis & Design Methods (SSADM) and the principles are great - HOWEVER you would be amazed at what you think people want and what they really want can be miles apart.

Good analysis is necessary but when you have to interview a busy office person or whatever I don't think they realise what problems there are in having to change structures if they forget to mention this once a year occurrence. Ideally you should have a person from the business you are working with assisting at all development stages and that person "rubber stamps" each development point, however time is money so this is often short cutted.

Want a good book? Try:

Database systems Engineering by Ryan & Smith For Analysis try Practical SSADM (V4) by Weaver.

Rich

Don P. Mellon wrote in message ...
>I hope you are not cheating on this assignment, because I know for a fact
>your professor reads all these news groups. (The number of cross-posts you
>made is very suspicious!)
>
>Your question sounds like:
>
>1. You have been missing classes
>2. OR you did not buy the course textbook
>3. OR you are doing some kind of survey of life in the trenches.
>
>Assuming Item 3 is your motivation, here is one veteran's answers:
>
>1. If you are referring to object development, always bottom-up, starting
>with tables and data normalization. If you are referring to "concept" or
>overall design, this is determined by the real-world objects I am trying to
>model into the database, such as the structure of the business
organization,
>the people involved, the work routines they use, and so forth. So I guess
>you could say this is a top-down approach.
>
>2. There are a lot of design tools for modeling a data structure. I do
not
>use any of them. I take a very simple approach: Every real-world object
is
>a table, and every real-world attribute of that object is a field in the
>table. Every real-world object has a natural relationship to another
>real-world object. These are the table joins.
>
>3. Assuming one already has the knowledge and tools required to build a
>database application, the biggest problem for me is understanding the
>business I am trying to model. Not only does each business have unique
>problems, but each has its own style of doing business, its own rules, even
>its own names (nomenclature) for everyday things. If I built databases
only
>for retailers or manufacturers, for example, after a while I could build
>them with my eyes closed. But when I have to be a lawyer, doctor, and
>Indian chief from one day to the next, it can be quite a challenge.
>
>Don P. Mellon
>PS: Sorry, no personal eMail service, not ever.
>
>
>Tonny <tonnyw_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:37b3d4e9_at_news.hawaii.rr.com...
>> I am doing a mini assignment for my Database Theory class. I would like
>ask
>> any DBA of this newsgroup to please with me with my assignment by
>answering
>> the following simple questions:
>>
>> 1. In develping your database, do you use
>> a. top-down approach
>> b. bottom-up approach
>> c. other strategy
>>
>> 2. How do you build you data model?
>>
>> 3. What are the biggest problems usually encountered in developing a
>> database?
>>
>> Please respond to my email: tonnyw_at_hotmail.com
>>
>> Thank you so much.
>>
>> Tonny
>>
>>
>
>
Received on Thu Sep 02 1999 - 14:46:01 CDT