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Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

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    Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

    Here goes nothing...I am fairly familiar with a5v7 &v5. however i would like input on what information would suit me best to store for my current project. What types of tables, sets, etc.

    I am designing a desktop/web application that would contain membership information, thier credit card information, and a profile for that member. The profile consisting of services each member can offer unto other members, services or intrests that a member is interested in getting. Its like a networking site for laymen.

    I dont know whether to offer members a search feature for intrests or to set up the database to automatically search and connect members. Is it possible to offer both options with the same data?

    This service needs to offer messages between members, administrators to members, and members to administrators. each member's profile will feature a rating system that is tabulated from visitors responses. And also a comment area, the only thing i would like to monitor in the comments is foul and rude language, could this be a table of words that are to be rejected? Any complaints from members relating to administration or other members would need to be archived.

    So what i am looking for is really any suggestions as to what features work best, and how to plan for the datbase. Any suggestions on table design's? Since i am planning for upwards of 200,000 members over the course of time, i would like the flow of data to work as perfect as possible now.

    Thanks for your time...James

    #2
    Re: Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

    Originally posted by Mr GreenJeans View Post
    The profile consisting of services each member can offer unto other members, services or intrests that a member is interested in getting. Its like a networking site for laymen.
    I guess the question is how do you relate the service with the corresponding interest? Presumably, you would have definitive values from a lookup to allow an exact match. Make sure to assign a unique (i.e. autoincrement) value to each service/interest (which should be a single table).

    e.g.
    Code:
    Service Table (used as lookup for services [U]and[/U] interests)
    ===========================================
    ID          SERVICE
    ------------------------------
    00001     Estate Planning
    00002     Home Nurse Care
    00003     I'm making this stuff up
    
    Include a field - "Type", which would either be "service" or "interest".
    Then you can have a member query his interest on TYPE="service" .and. SERVICE = Home Nurse Care (except that you actually query on ID=00002)

    Originally posted by Mr GreenJeans View Post
    And also a comment area, the only thing i would like to monitor in the comments is foul and rude language, could this be a table of words that are to be rejected?
    Create a table of naughty words - believe me there's a million! Then you could read them into an array and use one of the word string functions to compare the comments field against the bad words. You might also consider the soundex() function, but that would probably result in a lot of false positives.

    These are just thoughts off the top of my head - w/o a real understanding of what you are actually trying to accomplish.
    Peter
    AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

    [email protected]
    https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


    Comment


      #3
      Re: Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

      You make sense, thank you. Could you elaborate your line of thinking on the search table and the way searches are run off of services/interests and the id? Would there be multiple services that differ only in id and corresponding interest? and vice versa. Resulting in a table where the only unique key is the id and searches are run on the related topic?

      And my goal is to set up this database to enable individuals with another tool to help others. Where John Doe caters and Jane Smith needs a trustworthy Caterer for her wedding. Previous Doe customers would rate his services and provide honest feedback for Jane to base a decision off of. John comes out of the deal with another satisfied customer, Jane gets excellent food, and the database grows by adding Jane who knows how to Sew or something like that. She now trusts the site and would like to use it for her business. The site would grow exponentially from word of mouth.

      I am a mini perfectionist, so i want from the start this database to handle with ease 200,000 (optimistic yes). And at the same time i do not want to inundate any new user with hundreds of features. I want the site to offer simple data, searches, and comments. So simple that my 14 year old brother could teach my great grandmother how to use it. And i feel that my database should reflect that simplicity and remain powerful.

      Thank you again for your time, James

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

        Originally posted by Mr GreenJeans View Post
        I am a mini perfectionist, so i want from the start this database to handle with ease 200,000 (optimistic yes).
        I don't think the number of records should matter.

        Originally posted by Mr GreenJeans View Post
        I want the site to offer simple data, searches, and comments. So simple that my 14 year old brother could teach my great grandmother how to use it. And i feel that my database should reflect that simplicity and remain powerful.
        Ah yes. That's the name of the game. It is very difficult to make the complex apper simple, that's for sure.

        See attached simple example to give you some ideas...
        Peter
        AlphaBase Solutions, LLC

        [email protected]
        https://www.alphabasesolutions.com


        Comment


          #5
          Re: Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

          Sweet...Thanks so much. i do believe you gave me a few ideas.

          And yes Simplicity is the name of ths game, no matter now complicated the data flow is it still needs to remain simple.

          If i have any more questions i will post them up, I love this forum.

          James

          Comment


            #6
            Re: Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

            James,

            This is a little bit past your immediate post but I thought I'd throw this out.
            The profile consisting of services each member can offer unto other members, services or intrests that a member is interested in getting. Its like a networking site for laymen.
            The example Peter gave was nice, but since you used the pleural for 'services' and 'interests', this would require a different approach, probably separate tables for these linked to the parent Member in a 1:many set. This would allow a person to offer both their services of Terrorism and Wishful thinking.

            Mike W
            Mike W
            __________________________
            "I rebel in at least small things to express to the world that I have not completely surrendered"

            Comment


              #7
              Re: Would anyone aid my Brainstorming?

              thank you for the idea...i still am working on this project. and now that i think about it your way makes a little more sense than peters. i should create the separate tables and then only when a search is made that results in a match on both tables would the record be offered up for a match.

              i will stew on this for a little bit...any more ideas are welcome thanks

              Comment

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