dadabik
Most people who think they need a database? They don’t need a database. They probably just need a text file. For a single user simply creating a list of information, i.e. a bunch of addresses for mailing labels, they’re probably far better off with a text file or a simple spreadsheet. They’ll be able to do everything a database would let you do (search, sort, enter/edit/remove data) and they won’t have the overhead and hideous complexity of a database. This is a somewhat heretical viewpoint in the database snob community — you can hear the faints and gasps already — but admit it, my words have the silver ring of truth.
However, if multiple people are going to be storing hundreds of items in a centralized online repository, they probably legitimately need a database. Databases are notoriously hard to setup maintain, and for that reason, the right nerd can get paid big bucks to be a database expert. For years, people used Filemaker Pro to bridge the gap between “simple spreadsheet” and “complex database”, but as of late Filemaker’s exorbitant pricing structure and really freaking annoying database server software have caused many of their users to look elsewhere. MySQL is a really powerful and free open-source database, but it lives on a server and lacks a front-end that average human beings can use to input, edit, or search their databases.
Enter Dadabik. Another entry in the proud tradition of terrible open-source software names, it’s a PHP front end to MySQL that is fairly easy to set up and customize; I mean, I was able to do it. Using Dadabik means a user could have their MySQL database living on a server somewhere, or even on their own computer, and then simply use Dadabik’s web front end to enter, edit, search or export their data. Databik will export to Excel/comma separated value format, and can even be set up with simple permission levels so users can only be able to edit their own data. And did I mention this is all completely free?
Let us all join hands and pray that open-source projects like this provide the wooden stake through the heart required to kill off the shambling and painfully unmanageable FileMaker databases infesting this once-great land.
~jeff
March 23rd, 2006 at 11:53 am
1: I love Filemaker. You are totally wrong about its inappropriateness. Almost everywhere I’ve worked on it, it’s been used in true database form: with relationships between databases and multiple views of the same data: mailing list, enlistment history, financial aid information, whatever. I’ve seen this in little 2-person nonprofits and Yale University alike.
2: I’ve been using MySQL lately and find it baffling and have been wishing for a front end. I can’t wait to try this out.
March 23rd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
It is in fact you who are wrong about Filemaker and it not sucking.
I’m not arguing that FileMaker is inappropriate for those uses: it’s certainly database software. I’m arguing that, on the whole, it’s crappy to administrate, inappropriately expensive software incompatible with other tools whose day has quite entirely passed on.
I would love to see it go away in favor of a better front end for MySQL. That is what I am saying. And I am right.
p.s. I’m right
March 24th, 2006 at 12:40 pm
Oh, I’m with you there. Filemaker ease of use with MySQL would make me squirt like a humpback whale*.
*this simile brought to you by Americans United for an Uncomfortable Jeff.
March 24th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Uncomfortability achieved!
March 24th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
I don’t know much about Filemaker anymore, or it’s ability to share data easily through ODBC or any other technology, but I think all data should be kept in databases with the ability to share that data with others. Flat files are the devils work.