Coding and Databases

Tech Talk Coding
1

So, I’m attempting to create an app but I feel very much lost, doing searches in Google.

I was learning some Python but realized I need a database for the app. I tried looking up database and was confronted with several varieties. I decided to stick with mysql, since I have some classroom experience with MS SQL. However, I’m feeling frustrated with trying to understand how to create a database, tables, inputting and manipulating data, etc.

I guess what I’m looking for are simple tutorials about databases, mainly mysql in relation to Python. Thanks in advance…

Marty

1 Like
2

There is an HTML front end for MySQL which may help. I can’t recommend any as I’m fully entrenched in MS SQL Server.

3

Yes, I’ve used PHPmySQL when creating databases before. It isn’t ideal, you can’t actually model your database, but you can create it using a GUI, as opposed to CREATE TABLE statements.

Using a script is better, if you can do it, because you can always change the script and re-run it and if you need to move it to another server, you just run the script. That said, ISTR that phpmysql could generate a script.

There is a modelling tool for MySQL, where you can throw the tables onto a page and link them together, add fields, edit properties etc. and it would generate the CREATE-script. I haven’t used it for a decade, or so though.
https://www.mysql.com/products/workbench/

Edit: It seems to offer a lot more than it used to. It was purely a visual modelling tool back when I used it, now you can create queries etc. in there as well.

4

I did some googling… came across this video. It’s 8 hours, so it’s probably not trivial, but I have never watched it so I don’t know if it will be helpful or not. I will leave that on you to report back:

5

A lot of developers like to use an embedded database, and for that the frequent choice is SQLite. If you want something to play around with to test ideas in a GUI and generate some of the SQL for you, you could look into:
https://sqlitebrowser.org/

1 Like
6

I’d start with some kind of SQL based database like MySQL or SQLLite or postgress. Python has a library or two to connect to those databases.

I’d also try to keep it as simple as possible, like if you can get away storing your data as a file (look up python pickle) it might be easier than learning full fledged DB stuff. But if you wanna be a prof. dev you’ll need to learn DBs eventually.

My latest side project app I build using python and flask and it just writes state to a file. I’m confident it’ll only really have one client that ever writes anything so no reason to incur all the overhead associated with a real DB.

7

Apps are increasingly storing structured data in JSON files these days, but there is a point where this gets unwieldy.

8

Wow. I’m impressed by responses I’ve received for this question.

@Pommster, I’ll research more about HTML front end for MySQL. As for JSON files, I think I’ll stay from them for now.

@big_D, I may consider using the modeling tool, at least to start the database.

@PHolder, I’ll be sure to bookmark and watch the video.

@mampersat, I’ll take your suggestion to consideration. I’ll need to look at the data I have and see about making it simple to manipulate.

2 Likes
9

I just stumbled across this, it’s interesting how many databases are in this list:

10

Oracle is a pig. Can’t believe it’s so popular. Am really liking the NoSQL databases like MongoDB. Wish we could use it at my work place as it would suit a lot of the documents we handle a lot better than SQL Server.