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Re: [ProgSoc] NULL values in primary keys in MySQL



Myles Byrne wrote:
On 19/06/2006, at 9:41 AM, John Elliot wrote:
My advice is that you keep the database schema exactly as-is. Re- implement the VB app in PHP maintaining feature parity. It doesn't matter that in your opinion the VB app couldn't be less useless. The application exists and is (as I understand it) already in use.

This is good advice. If the app in *in use* then it is already 10x more valuable than your better-designed-but-still-in-development version.

The only (kinda massive) problem is that the VB app is a stateful single-user application, and a web application isn't.


Each request to the web application will release its database transactions before rendering a 'view', but the VB app won't. The VB app will depend (even though it shouldn't, but who are we kidding?) on the assumption that its database isn't being changed by more than one user at a time, but a web application can't do that.

So, the 'first cut' VB/Access to PHP/MySQL port will be utterly undeployable. (I still think that's the best 'first step' though, otherwise the complexity will escalate beyond any means to control it, and force (probably unwanted) 'business process re-engineering' and backward-compatibility/data-migration nightmares.)

Also don't use php. Use rails.

...but Myles, Jedd wants to learn *PHP*.

How will rails help with that? :)
















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