tobbesfilemaker Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Hey, Im new to filemaker.. Im wondering how do you guys think when you get a job in filemaker? say for example a program that registers work all around new york. How do you know which tables and what fields you should create? is there a special or easier way to think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wim Decorte Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Think about the reports that will need to come out of the system or think about the screens that people will be looking at. Figure out what should be on those reports/screens, figure out what tables those things should be belong to... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
comment Posted June 16, 2012 Share Posted June 16, 2012 Yes, there is a "special way to think". It's called database design and it would take a book to describe properly. In fact, several such books exist. Now I'll do a very brave deed and disagree with Wim: you should not let your user-interface requirements dictate your data model. Instead, you should look at the things you are going to track and divide them into entities (tables) and attributes (fields). The most important question in this aspect is the question of cardinality: how many of Y does X have? This will probably be the most decisive factor in determining whether Y is an attribute of X or an entity of its own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobbesfilemaker Posted June 16, 2012 Author Share Posted June 16, 2012 okey, thanks for answers! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wim Decorte Posted June 17, 2012 Share Posted June 17, 2012 Now I'll do a very brave deed and disagree with Wim: you should not let your user-interface requirements dictate your data model. No disagreement from me. But for newbies sketching out screens / doing some mockups can lead to thinking about what data needs to be stored and from there thinking about what table to put them in. Decisions on the data model are done by the developer alone, never the user. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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