Re: How do you illustrate a database?

Subject: Re: How do you illustrate a database?
From: Yvonne deGraw <yvonne -at- SHARK -dot- SMARTSTAR -dot- COM>
Date: Thu, 2 Dec 1993 08:56:18 -0800

Ken d'Albenas asks:
Ken d'Albenas asks:

> How do people depict a database in diagrams?

We document relational databases for a programmer/application developer
audience. We use the "disk/drum" cartoon mainly because that is what you
see in illustrations in the trade press (the magazines our audience gets
for free by lying in a questionnaire about how much software/hardware they
plan to buy).

Lately, I've been feeling that that depiction is a bit outdated, since
there are gigabyte drives in much smaller packages. But, stacks of paper
and file cabinets don't hold up as a metaphor for relational databases
and our audience would probably find them "too cute".

In sections where we want to show the contents of a database, we use a
variation of an "entity-relationship" diagram -- a common way of
diagramming relational databases. There are several other ways of diagramming
relational databases. You can probably find books on "CASE tools" that
describe the various diagramming styles.

Yvonne DeGraw
SmartStar Corporation
yvonne -at- shark -dot- smartstar -dot- com


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