Database
- What is it? Who uses it? What can it do? Why use it?
These are questions that people (who aren't
techies) usually want to ask, but are
afraid to ask, because, of course, everyone knows the answers, don't
they?
Well, yes
they do. But they usually don't know that they know. What I mean
is, everybody already uses a database, maybe not a computer database,
but somesort of thing that can be used to add information, change
information, retrieve information, or delete information.
But generally, their database is very personal,
and only they get to use it. The moment that
someone wants to share the data with someone else, well, that's where
the fun begins.
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Because, you
can make a copy of your database and give it to
that other person, and then they have it too. But if you change
your copy, then the two are no longer
the same, and, either you have to tell the other person what the changes
are or you get to make another copy, give them that new copy and throw
away the old version.
Now, if there
is only one or maybe two other copies, this isn't too much of a chore,
but if there are, say, 100 copies or a 1000 copies, then there is a
little work in this.
So computers
are able to do this task of keeping a database current for a few or a
few thousand users. But, since computers are still only computers, there
are some complications. This is where we
come in. [click
here for more info]
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