November 29, 2007 at 12:14 am
My eyes are bugging out of my head and I am still nowhere I need to be. I have jumped into a project on a leap of faith and with 30 pages of the database diagram I am still staring blankly at it.
I was wondering if someone had some tips on how to read someone elses design. The unfortunate part is that I don't have constant communication with them. There is no documentation on the data flow nor documents specifying constants in lookup tables. I am almost at my wit's end. The other issues I am facing is lack of descriptive information in a column's description field. In a client table there is a column called CODE, with a description of CODE. That doesn't do much for me. I see pivot table after pivot table, lack of comments and stored procedures without comments that look like they were generated using a Query Builder.
HELP!!!! Save me from myself....LOL. Seriously though, I find myself trying to load test data just to understand the schema and good parts of it are way too vague. I am trying to write SP's for information I have never seen and stabbing in the dark only lasts for so long. I figured I would write some SELECT SP's but there isn't any test data to select against. I'd like to get working on the BI, yet the schema is a complete mystery.
I was curious to know if anyone has had similar experiences and what they did to trudge through it. I've never been in this situation, I've always known the schema cuz I've developed it or been a part of it since it's inception.
I gotta get over the "missing link" hub and get developing.
Thanks
November 29, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Phil,
I feel for you and you have some sympathies.
First, get that diagram up on the wall where you can see it.
Now, as you look over the app, report, or whatever you are looking at, find a particular piece of data you need. Now trace that down to the table, look at related tables, and talk to business people so you can decode what data is being stored where.
Rinse, repeat, continue working through the tables, relating them to the application and then getting definitions from the business people.
You're reverse modeling the database up to the business this way, and it's hard. You'll probably get pivot tables and other temporary storage devices. That's ok, refactor or rebuild them later if you can, for now just make notes.
Make lots of notes, organize the entities, even if it's in Excel, and get everyone else that's developing to buy in and use (and contribute) to your notes. Eventually you'll start to feel comfortable.
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