Re: Learning the hard way
Posted by:
Nick Roper
Date: August 14, 2004 01:26AM
Chuck,
Spookily, we've just been asked to take over the redevelopment and ongoing administration of a MySQL/PHP based system for a company whos database is used to process data for, guess what, 'customers, parts, labor, service tickets, and invoices' Unfortunately, the person that developed the existing application hadn't done much in the way of normalisation, and there's a fair bit of redundant data and the like. Now, getting to Boyce-Codd normal form is probably a bit of overkill in most situations, but at least 1st or 2nd would have been nice...
I agree that most books are aimed at 'this is how you do it' - without including much information on 'this is what you're meant to do first', but I do have a couple of recommendations.
However, the books are in the office and I don't have Titles/Authors/ISBN details at home. Sadly though, I will be going into the office later this morning, so I'll send you the details when I get in.
The other thing to consider is that there are a lot of well-designed open-sorce solutions based on MySQL out there - so you may be able to save yourself a lot of develoment effort and reserve more time for the alcoholic beverages. I find that a drop of Bushmills usually does the job for me!
Catch you later,
Nick
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Nick Roper