So I'm working my day job at a machine shop as a sysadmin. They have a database in MS Access that has been one of the staples keeping this little operation together. One of my primary job functions is to “upgrade” this system so that it's “more useful”. No written requirements, no target platform (we're a Windows shop), no budget. Just get it done.
So I procede to throw together what I think is a “good way” to manage the information about jobs, materials, employees, vendors, shipping, etc (yes I know products exist to do this, tell me I'm re-inventing the wheel, send insults to HayWould.JaBloughmi@jeremysimmons.net)
Long story short, the old datbase is composed of half a dozen tables with a few key features
- A large table with 80 (not kidding) columns labeled, job#, customer, i1,qty1,op1,i2,qty2,op2,etc etc.
- A lookup table for materials, which contains all of 3 materials. You can actually just type in whatever you want in the first table.
- A customer table with information so out of date, we don't do business all but 12 of them, and of those 12, 11 have out of date information.
I could go on like this, but you'd see multiple pages of issues with this “database” Whomever set it up was basically asking someone to go to the local gun store, buy a high-powered sniper rifle, and hunt them down.
Why?
Because it's just not that hard to make a semi-relational database with some nested tables, and a couple lookup tables. It makes it easy to do things like, run reports, find things by typing in one word, or selecting something from a drop down list. You can't do this with a glorified spreadsheet, because there is no datastructure.