stoutfellow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
stoutfellow) wrote2017-10-22 10:16 am
stoutfellow) wrote2017-10-22 10:16 am
Entry tags:
Programming
Note: in the following, I am in no way boasting of my programming abilities. In the past, I've done a little programming using variants of C++, but not since IBM gave up on OS/2. (I liked that OS!) What I'm doing now involves MS Access and Access Basic - Tinker Toys, no more.
Anyway: after entering a few hundred books into my library database, I grew dissatisfied; I've begun a full revamp. (This is version 5.) Right now, I'm just plotting - working out the tables and forms I'm going to need. In some ways, this is the most fun part of the process - deciding just what I want to be able to do and how to do it most efficiently. (The limitations of Access Basic chafe occasionally, I'll admit.) Automate this process, make that information easily available on the fly, consolidate the other stuff so I won't have to enter it more than once - this is a fun challenge, and of a different kind than my workaday research.
I'm probably going to revamp my finances database too, but that can wait. I need to keep the old one around for the next while anyway, for tax and other purposes.
Anyway: after entering a few hundred books into my library database, I grew dissatisfied; I've begun a full revamp. (This is version 5.) Right now, I'm just plotting - working out the tables and forms I'm going to need. In some ways, this is the most fun part of the process - deciding just what I want to be able to do and how to do it most efficiently. (The limitations of Access Basic chafe occasionally, I'll admit.) Automate this process, make that information easily available on the fly, consolidate the other stuff so I won't have to enter it more than once - this is a fun challenge, and of a different kind than my workaday research.
I'm probably going to revamp my finances database too, but that can wait. I need to keep the old one around for the next while anyway, for tax and other purposes.
no subject
I'd be checking this very carefully, because MS Access did not have a good reputation for this in former days. (In part because it's not supposed to be what you use for anything important; that's meant to be MSSQL.)
Caveat: I have XML biases about databases, preferring hierarchical to relational. (Graph theory to set theory, by mathematical underpinnings.) This may be informing my reflexive response. :)
no subject
But whatthehell. This is as much for my own amusement as it is for anything else.
no subject
Just been around when someone's long-established personal accounts system died the death and there was no prospect of recovery. (The platform was unavailable on two levels and the single backup of the content was corrupt and the backup of the program wasn't the lastest version....) It becomes a twitch.