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Subject:Databases and Pigeonholes From:Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- FS -dot- COM -dot- AU> Date:Thu, 3 Jul 1997 17:05:43 +0800
> I am not really familiar with the term pigeonhole except with regard
> to the cliche--whose origin I am not familiar with either. Please
> enlighten me!
Sure. Pigeonholes are like. . . well, like a database.
Seriously, real pigeonholes are small, open-fronted boxes arranged
in a sort of grid pattern on the wall of a pigeon cage (coop?).
The term is also used for the informal mail-boxes found in many offices.
For example, at my wife's school there are a set of pigeonholes in the
staff room, one for each teacher, where people can leave mail, notes,
newsletters, death threats, etc.
> Since I am dealing with attorneys I depicted a research
> assistant physically going through shelves of papers and books to retrieve
> information as per the request of the attorney. I analogized (<--please
> note use of a derivational suffix '-ize') the research assistant to a
> DBMS. I think that this will probably suffice, but I was hoping to find
> some more creativity than I had already conjured on my own.
>
> I don't know who it was that said it in this thread, but I would have to
> agree that there really is just not that much more to it than the filing
> cabinet and library metaphors.
It depends how much they need to know, but I think there's more to it.
First, it may be useful to distinguish between the stored information --
the database itself -- and how you extract information from it. The whole
thing together is the DBMS.
The key things are:
- the info they want may be stored in different pieces and different
places in the DB
- they have to phrase a request and a helpful assistant will gather
all the bits of info required to satisfy the request
- the assistant is very literal-minded, so it's useful to know how to
phrase your requests efficiently and correctly. A badly worded request
may return thousands of records, or no records, or the wrong records.
I do like the suggestion of using legal-citation searches as examples.
Regards
---
Stuart Burnfield (who really does use a Windows CD as a coaster)
Functional Software Pty Ltd mailto:slb -at- fs -dot- com -dot- au
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