Damn

samantha — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 20:06:00 -0600

I've made it through a day of not smoking. I'm walking around in a perpetually pissed off place. I keep telling myself I only have to make it until Friday for this 'stint'. Good times. I didn't have any coffee today, either. Just green tea. No coffee. Ack.

In other areas, I've been going through my book on Conceptual Database Design. Someone whose technical knowledge and opinion I hold high regard for, recommended a couple of books to me. I've been reading one of them and I've found that mind-mapping while reading a book such as this, is a great way to reinforce the material.

I don't always retain what I read as much as I'd like and when I do, it's normally because I take notes while reading. Last night I tried mind-mapping for the first time and it really helped me.

So, why am I interested in database design? Everything that I program, whether writing or maintenance programming, deals with databases. I feel like in order for me to really be effective at designing a web-based application, I need to have a solid grasp of database design. It's not enough for me just to have a shallow understanding of how things could possibly work together. I need to know theory. I like theory.

In any case, I was going through an introduction to the Entity Relationship Model, and where the book was discussing what determines a one-to-many, one-to-one, many-to-many relationship, the light bulb came on and it really made a lot of sense. The language in the book is very 'meaty' so it's not something I can just read through on a whim. It requires some concentration.

I'm just excited about the prospect of securing a better foundation with these concepts.

note: I've gone through and edited this post 3 times. My sentence structure and grammar is crap. I'm tired and nicotine-deprived. I shall put the keyboard down before I drive myself even more insane.

mindful iterations: Damn

Damn