This week we are returning to the series on Philosophy,
and we will nail down the role of data and the
database in any application that requires such
things.
This is the Database Programmer blog, for anybody who wants
practical advice on database use.
There are links to other essays at the bottom of this post.
This blog has two tables of contents, the
Topical Table of Contents and the list
of
Database Skills.
Review of The Absolute
In the first essay in this series, "http://database-programmer.blogspot.com/2008/09/quest-for-absolute.html"
>The Quest For the Absolute, I offered the opinion
that all programmers by nature seek absolutes to
simplify and inform the development effort. Taking
a page from the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle,
I suggested that the best absolute was the quest for
the virtuous program, which is to say a program
that served its purpose well.
A program that serves its purpose well is one that
meets the needs of the check signer, the end-user,
and the programmer. The check signer needs some
strategic goal to be met, the end-user must be
productive, and the programmer must make a living.
If a program achieves all of these, it is an ideal
virtuous program, and has satisfied the absolute
requirements that are true of all programs.
Considering the Decision Maker
Normally we think of a decision maker as some important
person who has the power to choose your product or
services, or to give her money to your competitor.
She makes her decision based on how well she can judge
who will meet her strategic needs.
Although the decision maker will have vastly different
needs in different situations, and is usually thinking
at a high level, she has at least one
need that is universal: the simple need to keep and
use records. She needs a filing system. All of her
stated goals will assume that you both know
this unstated goal is down there at the foundation of
the entire proposed system.
We programmers often forget this simple fact because
computers have been around long enough that we
do not remember that in their original forms it was
impossible to mistake that computers were just
electronic filing systems. Way back when
I was a kid the day came when phone bills started
arriving with an "IBM Card" slipped into them. You
returned the card with your check -- they were moving
their files into the electronic age. Then came
electronic tickets on airlines -- nothing more than
a big filing system. The modern web sites we visit
to buy tickets are nothing but an interface to what
remains a filing system at its heart.
The Virtuous Programmer
So if we go back to the idea of "virtue" as the Greeks
thought of it, which means serving your function well,
a virtuous programmer will remember always that he
is but humble filing clerk. This is not his entire
purpose, but it is the beginning of all other purposes
and the foundation that the higher purposes are
built upon.
Not Just Relational
This principle is general to all programming. An
email server is a program that must receive and
store email for later retrieval. What good is an
email server that cannot store anything? What
good is a camera without its memory card? What
good is a mobile phone without its contacts list?
What good is a image editing program if it cannot
read and write files?
So all programs exist to process data, and the
business application programmer knows that in his
context this means we are really making giant sexy
record-keeping systems. We are the guys that
color-code the filing cabinets.
Does Not Mean Relational Is Required
This idea, that we are filing clerks, does not
automatically mean we must pick relational databases
for the persistence layer -- the question of what
filing system to use is a completely different
question.
Conclusion
If we begin with the idea that the ideal program
meets the needs of decision maker, end-user, and
programmer, and if we consider first the needs of
the decision maker, then we begin with the universal
strategic need to keep good records. The ideal
programmer knows this need is at the bottom of all
other needs, and remembers always that we are but
humble filing clerks.
Related Essays
This blog has two tables of contents, the
Topical Table of Contents and the list
of
Database Skills.
Other philosophy essays are:
- >Prepare Now For Possible Future Head Transplant
- >The Quest for The Absolute
- >I Am But A Humble Filing Clerk (this essay)
- >Why I Do Not Use ORM
- >Minimize Code, Maximize Data
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