[CLUE-Tech] MySQL question.

[Match Grun]

Kevin,

It seems like your friend is expecting to find an MS-Access lookalike!

A database management system is simply a repository for storing data.
The usual method of creating tables with a SQL database is to use the
SQL create table command. This is text and is usually supplied with
some sort of command line utility (for example, oracle has sqlplus).
Both MySql and Postgres have a similar utilities. Alternatively, SQL
can be supplied to the DBMS via an API (for example, with JDBC and
ODBC).

A GUI interface in not necessary either to view the data or to create
tables. However, if the SQL API is available, then a GUI application
can be built which uses SQL and the API to communicate to the DBMS.

A GUI for form based input and reporting is not a mandatory feature
for any database. These might be used with client-server application.
Of course, if you are developing a web-based application then you
might not even be using such a GUI. Typically, in a web-based
environment, an application server uses SQL statements to access data
through an API. In fact, these applications hide the fact that a DBMS
is used for data storage. This allows the data storage method to be
abstracted away from the front end.

Match

On Mon, 18 Jun 2001 14:04:24 -0600
Kevin Cullis <kevincu at orci.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I'm trying to get some people to try MySQL and other good software and
> below is just one comment. This friend is a BIG database guru and so he
> has some things he normally does that maybe MySQL may not be so readily
> available to him. Any suggestions?
> 
> Kevin
> 
> 
> > 
> > Kevin,
> > 
> > I've downloaded MySQL and taken a look at it.  I'm not sure what I was
> > remembering as the low-end database engine from Sybase, but this is not
> > it.  This is "free" software.  It's not intuitively obvious to me how
> > to build the tables in a GUI tool with MySQL...are you aware of how this
> > is done?  Also, what form-based tools are available for this?  I'm
> > thinking of both form-based input and probably form-based report builders.
> > The former I see as much more important at the moment than the latter.
> > If you've looked at my proposal, you will see that even for something
> > as straight-forward as the "People" information, there are several tables
> > involved in storage of the information.  These tables are joined together
> > to put together a picture of each person's information.  This is most
> > easily done if there is a form with a query behind it that is joining
> > all of the necessary tables.  If this is not done, there is too much
> > chance of a person making a mistake updating all of the join columns
> > between tables.
> > 
> > If there is no tools like this at the moment for MySQL, I would suggest
> > going with something that has them, then migrating at a later date.
> 
> 
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-- 
Match Grun
"Don't wonder too much -- you may get lost"
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