Re: Designing a structure for a personal database

On Apr 26, 3:33 pm, David Segall <da...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

> Please ignore any database structure implied in the preceding
> paragraph. I'm looking for the ideal PIM database structure and you
> probably understand the requirements better than I do. No doubt you
> have been frustrated by the address books in many applications that
> insist you supply all the details for every individual.
>

You may be interested in some of the standards available for your
application domain. E.g.: vCard, FOAF, hCard.

The general question you make sounds like: do I need to reinvent the
wheel every time I need a new model for my new application? If there
are libraries and design patterns for coding, aren't there reference
proposals for application domains?

There are indeed, in recent years a lot of work has been done on XML
formats, microformats, ontologies and Semantic Web. So, in many cases
it's likely one has not to start from scratch. Although, in my
experience, almost always you will need customization and adaptation
of what you find out there.