Unit 10 concepts

I'll begin with Assignment 1-Data Modeling and the ERD. There was a lot of reading on data modeling. I can understand using this model as a graphical representation, a framework, for the purpose of helping one to analyze what is needed or required in a project. Creating the diagram though is a bit more thought provoking. I think I understand entities and attributes but trying to associate the relationships one to the other can be difficult depending on what the entities are. Assignment 2-Normalization. I need to work on normal forms--not so much the definitions, but getting the rules down. As Coulson says in his tutorial, I need to memorize the three normal forms so I can recite them in my sleep. This won't happen soon. Assignment 3-MySQL tutorials. I have to admit that this section was actually sort of fun. I really enjoyed Mostafa's videos on SQL Basics. They were easy to follow except for the characters ( and ). In the video, they looked like <> to me. I must have spent a good half hour trying to figure out why <> weren't working for me when I entered them as part of the script in the commands. Luckily, I referenced a book I had on MySQL, which showed the use of ( and ) for what I was trying to do and they worked. Typing in the correct characters on the command line sure gives me grief. This has to be so accurate. Assignment 4, I'm still working on. I basically have my ERD designed but I'm just not sure if it's correct. I've done some work on getting my database into table form but I'm still trying to decide if I have everything in the right place. I'll work on this tomorrow night. That's the last chance I have before I have to turn it in.