Design better databases

#1

Post by fordarnold » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

Re: Design better databases

#2

Post by zenogais » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

Kinda misleading title. Doesn't really have anything to do with database design. It has to do with sharing Entity-Relationship diagrams. Maybe "Design better relational models".

Re: Design better databases

#3

Post by koolba » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:36 PM UTC

More of an ER modeler than a database designer. The interface is pretty slick/simple. Here's a sample I just cooked up: http://dbpatterns.com/documents/570699101514b428de8893a1

I can't imagine using it for anything real but it was fun to play with.

If the creator is reading this, here's a bug report: If the user hasn't hit "Save" when they export the schema, they get an empty text file and they'll think the app is broken. It should either auto-save or prompt the user "You have unsaved content, do you want to save before exporting?"

UPDATE: One more bug report, the export doesn't escape the columns names at all. It just naively adds double quotes around them. This breaks with double quotes in field names (yeah yeah which is stupid but still..):

    CREATE TABLE "foo" (
	"id" int,
	"baz" varchar(255),
	"bar" varchar(255),
	""test"" varchar(255)
    );

Re: Design better databases

#4

Post by karmakaze » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:39 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #3

More of an ER modeler than a database designer. The interface is pretty slick/simple. Here's a sample I just cooked up: http://dbpatterns.com/documents/570699101514b428de8893a1 I can't imagine using it for anything real but it was fun to play with. If the creator is reading this, here's a bug report: If the user hasn't hit "Save" when they export the schema, they get an empty text file and they'll think the app is br…

Thanks for your sample link. It's way more interesting than the feed of model snippets in the original link.

Re: Design better databases

#5

Post by astazangasta » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

koolba wrote: post #3

More of an ER modeler than a database designer. The interface is pretty slick/simple. Here's a sample I just cooked up: http://dbpatterns.com/documents/570699101514b428de8893a1 I can't imagine using it for anything real but it was fun to play with. If the creator is reading this, here's a bug report: If the user hasn't hit "Save" when they export the schema, they get an empty text file and they'll think the app is br…

I found the interface very off-putting. If this is a site about exploring data models, a "public feed" and "search" is not a great way to interact with those. In fact, a timeline chronology of when these things were made seems a great way to expose mostly irrelevant information to a large number of users.

How do I browse these models? Is there a taxonomy of organization? How many models are in the system? Are there models relevant to general domains of interest to me? None of this is made apparent.

Re: Design better databases

#6

Post by clay_to_n » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:53 PM UTC

It's an old-looking website, but I've found this site has some really cool data models: http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/index.htm

As someone in the healthcare space, looking at some of these models gives me a better idea of how various aspects of the healthcare industry work, and the things they interact with. Ex) http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/patient_data_ware...

Re: Design better databases

#7

Post by whatnotests » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:55 PM UTC

Kinda cool but the UX really needs some re-thinking.

Simple things like dialogs getting stacked on top of each other, using `prompt("...")` sometimes and modals other times, foreign key relationship arrows not indicating cardinality, etc --

Looks good but please don't consider it "finished" yet.

Re: Design better databases

#8

Post by cmrdporcupine » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

Y'know I really miss designing relational schemas. As much as I hate SQL the language I love the relational model that it is a (butchered and ugly and compromised) implementation of. But working where I do on the systems I do now this is something I never have to deal with anymore.

There's something very therapeutic about organizing data using a system of rules, and the relational data model is a powerful one.

Re: Design better databases

#9

Post by bochoh » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

clay_to_n wrote: post #6

It's an old-looking website, but I've found this site has some really cool data models: http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/index.htm As someone in the healthcare space, looking at some of these models gives me a better idea of how various aspects of the healthcare industry work, and the things they interact with. Ex) http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/patient_data_ware...

Thanks for this, so much information here.

Re: Design better databases

#10

Post by raziel2p » Thu, Apr 07, 2016, 6:02 PM UTC

Most of these seem extremely simple. I would like to see some examples where a good database schema isn't so obvious.