Ian Leslie wrote:
I like the proposal. I personally found the Derby documentation pretty
good and I get started quite well but I think with this document things
would have been even smoother.
Speaking of my experience I would have found Module 1, 2 and 4 to be
what I was looking for (note I am not suggesting the others are not
important - just thinking about my initial goals). Based on the next
things I searched out information on I suggest the following additional
modules:
1) A module showing a more complex example of inserting data. Introduce
the notion of temporary tables and show how they can be used to hold
simple data so that a more complex insert can be performed to populate a
database. I am thinking here of something with a normalized set of
tables and how to insert data such that the ids of one table join with
another. As someone with little SQL or database experience, creating
and populating the schema for my data was challenging (I have a friend
who helped design a good schema - but I was thinking that more advanced
database example would help us novices a lot). I had to fall back on my
friend again for the SQL to perform the loading because the insert
examples I read in the documentation were all very simple.
2) A module showing how to use update. I have discovered that each
database uses update slightly differently. Some non trivial examples of
update (perhaps with the more advanced database idea above) would be
helpful.
3) A module showing how to produce and then connect to a read only
database. Same thing in a .jar'ed database. The documentation has a
good recipe at the moment but a step by step example to build on would
be even better.
I think the modules you have already will be very interesting I simply
wanted to suggest you add a few more.
Thanks,
Ian
<snip>
Hi Ian -
I wanted to get back to you and thank your your suggestions. I have
attached them to the issue being used to track the document development
so they don't get "lost in the email". The consensus of the Community
was to focus on the goal of getting people working with SQL ASAP.
Background information and examples like you suggest don't fit with this
goal but, I feel, do need to included at some point, possibly in WWD or
possibly in another place. Preserving the suggestions is the first step.
If you have been following WWD you have noticed that the scope of the
document is now "the basics". It is less of a tutorial document than I
had originally envisioned. Topics and steps were removed that were not
absolutely necessary to get people to the point of executing SQL in the
four environments (1 & 2 = interactive SQL using the Embedded and Client
Driver, 3 & 4 JDBC SQL using the Embedded and Client Driver). Of
course the document still includes the modules you highlighted.
I hope you will take a look at the revised project proposal and let me
know what you think.
Thanks again, Stan
