In the last exciting episode, aaron.glenn@xxxxxxxxx ("Aaron Glenn") wrote: > Anyone care to share the great books, articles, manifestos, notes, > leaflets, etc on data modelling they've come across? Ideally I'd like > to find a great college level book on data models, but I haven't come > across one that even slightly holds "definitive resource"-type status. > > Feel free to reply off list to keep the clutter down - I'd be happy to > summarize responses for the list. Any web search involving the word "modelling" is likely to take you down some wrong paths :-). One interesting looking web site with a barrel of examples is <http://www.databaseanswers.org/data_models/index.htm>. A problem with this is that it is common for your application framework to, a priori, strongly affect the shape of the data model. Thus, if you're building for Ruby on Rails, you'll be drawn into models that are RoR-shaped. If you use a particular OO language, there will probably be strong temptation to try to map directly onto its object model, which will, again, heavily affect the shape of your data models. It seems likely that this factor (which might be simplified to "to one with a hammer, everything looks like a nail, including your thumb") will shape things almost moreso than the direct domain of the problem. -- output = ("cbbrowne" "@" "gmail.com") http://linuxdatabases.info/info/slony.html Rules of the Evil Overlord #173. "Although it would provide amusement, I will not confess to the hero's rival that I was the one who committed the heinous act for which he blames the hero." <http://www.eviloverlord.com/>