"My Club" Database Update

I think it’s useful for the community to have ‘step-by-step’ accounts of the process of developing Base applications (such as yours). Do post updates if appropriate.

Frofa,

Work is in progress, although I’ve experienced significant delays, the reasons for which are germane to the effort, and perhaps of interest to the members herein, so I’ll list them:

1. My intention is to make a clean and total break from that major proprietary office automation provider’s product line, which I’ve used for nearly thirty years, and transition to the LibreOffice/OpenOffice products. As a result, I’m (re-)starting at the basics with LibreOffice. This has resulted in about a month of time learning the basics of Writer, Calc, Base, and also HSQLDB. (My target is to attain advanced user proficiency.)

2. Although I’ve used SQL in the past, I’m nowhere near current on basic statements, so I’ve spent a lot of time reading the HyperSQL User and Utilities Guides to come up to speed on the SQL and Java implementation in that platform.

3. I’ve spent a lot of time learning to use SQL in the HSQLDB Database Manager, to include building and altering tables. (This has allowed me to come up to speed with using SQL directly with the database engine, and I’m now building and altering all tables – 23 total, and inserting/loading “validation” data, all with SQL statements.)

4. I’ve realized (something I’ve known for decades) that the “My Club” database solution will not be successful unless it is built to implement well-defined First-, Second-, and Third-Order Business Rules; so I’ve “projectized” the entire effort, and re-started from the beginning using Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) methods, to include defining and documenting those business rules.

5. Because the process is just as important as the product, I’ve established basic controls on the development effort, which took some time to decide how I wish to present and control the effort. See this web page for the “presented” outcome: http://theexerciseofvitalpowers.com/program-mmxiv/

My intention is to leverage the expertise herein on the technical aspects of implementing those business rules in Base/HSQLDB, to include posting/making available all deliverables. I expect that I’ll need a lot of help. But this results in several issues that I’ll state now, just to set expectations:

1. I’m proceeding with “sanitized” deliverables. I’m using fictitious names, which can be easily altered by changing the value of a “document property.”

2. The business rules will not be sanitized; they will reflect the business problem to be solved.

3. I expect to publish the UML models, SQL listings, the database itself, and the documented manuals. Call it “peer review.”

4. The number of tables and the complex relationships in the database will no doubt cause respondents to question why this has to be so complex and involved. But, the current structure reflects both the business rules, and (my understanding of) normalization rules.

5. Because the overall goal is for “Harry” to learn, I’m more interested in “digging this ditch” correctly, rather than quickly. This means that some respondents may tend to view my approach as doing things the hard way. In a sense, they will not be wrong.

6. I expect to publicly post information product deliverables (i.e., the database, documents, etc.) which are the results of my work, under some form of public licensing to make the results freely available (with attribution to author). If anyone can recommend an appropriate license, please do so.

7. Because I’m a guest herein, using the resources of others, the moderators should advise whether they do or do not want the various deliverables posted within these forums, or elsewhere; or how they would like this accomplished; and to what extent (or limits) they want of project update communication (i.e., posts and threads).

I’ve targeted completion of the database project for September 1, 2014, which coincides with “My Club’s” startup of Fall activities. This is merely four months away, so the effort will be a stretch. But, the initial ground work is behind me, and my focus is now shifting to development of the database proper.

If you’ve any questions or concerns, please advise…

Harry