Today I got some news that tells me I’m going to have some spare time on my hands. So I figured I might as well find something to do with that spare time. One of the ideas in my list caught my attention and I started working on it.

Sort of the centre of that idea is a good data store. I need to store a lot of strings and be able to search them all. And manage the entire thing of course. So I figured I’d sketch a preliminary database design.

I could not believe what I found. I don’t remember anything about database design. I remember the normalisation rules, probably because the concept of “normalising” always seemed weird to me, my designs are usually normalised out of the box, but then.. I don’t remember anything else.

There are primary keys and.. what are they called.. I had to google it, foreign keys. And how do I search subtables of subtables? I don’t even remember such a concept, google confirms there is no such thing as a subtable. Head scratch.

Database stuff always seemed so benign to me I never gave it a second thought after I was done with my courses. I knew there are very complex queries and lots of issues with databases but the field didn’t interest me at all.

Now it turns out I spent so much time with other technologies I forgot even the simplest things about databases. That struck me as so bizarre I just had to write this blog post. I guess anything can be forgotten if it isn’t used, no matter how simple it is.