my new project, is this the right way?

[Dave Angel]

On 11/26/2011 06:41 PM, 88888 Dihedral wrote:
> On Saturday, November 26, 2011 1:01:34 AM UTC+8, rusi wrote:
>> On Nov 14, 3:41 pm, Tracubik<affdfs... at b.com>  wrote:
>>> Hi all,
>>> i'm developing a new program.
>>> Mission: learn a bit of database management
>>> Idea: create a simple, 1 window program that show me a db of movies i've
>>> seen with few (<10) fields (actors, name, year etc)
>>> technologies i'll use: python + gtk
>>> db: that's the question
>>>
>>> since i'm mostly a new-bye for as regard databases, my idea is to use
>>> sqlite at the beginning.
>>>
>>> Is that ok? any other db to start with? (pls don't say mysql or similar,
>>> they are too complex and i'll use this in a second step)
>>>
>>> is there any general tutorial of how to start developing a database? i
>>> mean a general guide to databases you can suggest to me?
>>> Thank you all
>>>
>>> MedeoTL
>>>
>>> P.s. since i have a ods sheet files (libreoffice calc), is there a way to
>>> easily convert it in a sqlite db? (maybe via csv)
>> To learn DBMS you need to learn sql
>> [Note sql is necessary but not sufficient for learning DBMS]
>> I recommend lightweight approaches to start with -- others have
>> mentioned access, libreoffice-base.
>> One more lightweight playpen is firefox plugin sqlite-manager
>>
>>> Is that ok? any other db to start with? (pls don't say mysql or similar,
>>> they are too complex and i'll use this in a second step)
>> Correct. First you must figure out how to structure data -- jargon is
>> normalization.
>> After that you can look at transactions, ACID, distribution and all
>> the other good stuff.
> If I have a fast hash library  that each hash function supports insertion and deletion and can be frozen to be stored into the file system if desired and retrieved lator . Can I use several hashes to replace a database that is slow and expensive?
>
If you're using Python, you already have a "fast hash" library, in the 
dictionary class.  And yes, if a problem doesn't need the full 
generality of a database, you may be able to implement it with 
dictionaries, and it may even be practical to store those dictionaries 
to disk for later retrieval.  However, there are quite a few reasons 
this may not be good enough.  To start with just two:   if there are 
multiple users of the database, and they have to be synched.  Or if you 
have to be safe from a program or a system crashing.

-- 

DaveA