Designing a Database

As we mentioned in Chapter 1, “Introduction to Visual Basic .NET,” the first step in creating any program is talking to the users to determine the program requirements, or functional specifications. In the case of a database application, you will also need to determine what data the program needs to maintain to organize it into a database. For example, knowing that you have to produce directories and mailing lists tells you that the database needs to contain addresses and phone numbers.

→ For more Design Tips, see Chapter 1, “Introduction to Visual Basic .NET,” p.11

In this section, you examine many of the considerations involved in designing databases. You can apply these concepts to any type of relational database, not ...

Get Special Edition Using Microsoft® Visual Basic® .NET now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.