Database Reference
In-Depth Information
It is also critical to have some documentation for the end users. You've
all seen the manuals that come with software that runs on your PC. Look
at the manual that comes with Visio and imagine yourself as the end user
for this software. If you write a system, you will need to write a manual for
your end users.
Finally, you will need to train your end users to use the system. When I
worked for the New York Stock Exchange, we brought in a tool that per-
mitted our end users to use a 4th Generation Language (4GL) to do their
own queries against the system's database. We needed to train these end
users to use the 4GL productivity. Instead of writing and teaching a course
ourselves, we hired an expert who did it for us.
Maintenance
Many, many years ago I worked with a project leader who wanted to play
with a new toy. At that time, databases were just coming into vogue. The
project leader decided to create a database for a new system. The problem
was that this particular system didn't need this particular database. The
system was written, but as a result of the horrid choice of databases, it
never ran well. In fact, it bombed out all the time.
After a year of problems, management decided that the system needed
to be fixed. And fix it we did. This is called
corrective maintenance
—modi-
fying an existing system so that it works correctly. There are lots of reasons
why maintenance is done.
One reason we're all familiar with this is because of security and viruses.
Systems people frequently make modifications to software because of
problems such as this. I know some casino gaming programmers who had
to suspend programming new features into the system to take care of the
Code Red worm. This is an example of preventive maintenance.
Most often, the reason for maintenance is simply to improve the system.
Let's say that the end-user casino decides to add a new game to the system,
or a new data field is added to a database or a new report is required. All of
these are examples of maintenance for improvement purposes.
Some organizations have two types of programmers. One type usually
works on new software, and the other type is stuck with maintenance.
This isn't often done anymore, because maintenance programmers are
usually an unhappy lot and, subsequently, their turnover rate is quite high.
All systems need to be managed. You can't just make changes to a system
willy-nilly. The way you control what happens to a system is to continue
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