| Microsoft Office 2000/Visual Basic Programmer's Guide | |
If you decide to store the data for your solution in an Access database (.mdb), SQL Server database, or other relational database, designing the database structure is likely to be the most challenging part of building the solution. In order to understand how the tables in the database should be structured and how they should relate to one another, you need to understand the data — perfectly. Although it's fairly easy to modify the data model while you're developing the solution, it's much more difficult once your customers are using the solution. So it's important to put as much effort as necessary into the process of designing the data model before you begin writing code. Developing a solution based on a well-designed data model is much more rewarding than working with one that's poorly designed.
There are entire books devoted to designing effective relational data models. If you're new to relational database design, check out the references listed in the "Where to Go from Here" section of this chapter for more information.