Rethinking Database Data
The folks at Dabble DB have up a provocative post wondering at why databases have traditionally been so unimaginative about data:I’ve always found it strange that databases are so unimaginative whenGood question, and one that I've long wondered about. Data should be what you say it is, whether it's meetings, an email corpus, or how I spent my summer holidays, or where I lost my car keys. Trouble is, traditional databases -- whether online or offline -- have been too rigid to work with real people on real data, thus forcing the DB analyst priesthood to emerge, with all the corollary irritations.
it comes to data types: text, numbers, dates, times, and not much more
— basically the same low-level options that have been around for
decades. At the same time, people working with data think in much
richer terms: an event happens from 2 to 4 next thursday, a company is
based in Vancouver, BC, and so on.
Anyway, there is lots more at the Dabble site, including the launch of location-centric data fields, as well as nifty charting stuff. Check it out at the blog, or watch a screencast here.
obDisclosure: I'm an investor and therefore horribly conflicted and may be making stuff up, hyping the company, etc. etc.
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