Lori’s Blog

VIII: Chapter 14 October 28, 2006

Snyder Chapter 14: Getting to First Base- Introduction to Database Concepts

 With the introduction to spreadsheets last week, the chapter in Snyder and the presentation this week introducing databases was easier to grasp and understand, although there were some surprising differences between databases and spreadsheets that I was unaware of. Even though both databases and spreadsheets are used to store and manipulate information placed within them, each performs a set of different functions from the other and requires separate information from the data to manipulate properly. For instance, with databases, the position of the data in the worksheet makes no difference when arranging, merging, or combining data, whereas with spreadsheets position is essential. Databases must include column headings called the primary key in order to identify specific entity, yet spreadsheets do not neccessarily need a title since the columns and rows in the program provide that service. Moreover, with databases, you can specify what type of data is being entered into an instance or entity before you enter it, such as characters and the quantity of characters, numbers, symbols, or values, all which are called attributes. Spreadsheets only allow you to change the data  through formatting after you enter it.

Databases also can conduct extremely helpful and pretty nifty functions with the instances (worksheets) it aquires, which was partially demonstrated in class and was intriquing to me, since I have hardly worked with databases. According to Snyder and the presenters, the tables in a database system can be used to form a completely different table from another instance. This at first may not be so surprising, since a spreadsheet can do this too with a simple copy and paste procedure. However, with databases, you can choose and select which columns and rows that you want to import into the new database by simply selecting the primary key. You can also perform spreadsheet functions like add, difference, and product, with a database table, only with databases, you use the entire workbook to add more tables or subtract them (difference) or combine two tables together (product), whereas with spreadsheets, you can only use these functions on the data within the tables.

Databases can serve as a great asset to companies, businesses, and non-profits that have multiple spreadsheets stored and must combine them together into one, organized and selected workbook. This can be possible with spreadsheet programs, but the probability of having to perform numerous copy and pastes, and perhaps even retyping the data is great compared to using databases that can apply a combination of functions in half the time a speadsheet can. It was refreshing to become aware of different options and functions in data programs you can use when it comes to storing and manpulating information. Now you can make the choice of what data program would be more efficient to use in order to perform a particular function.