Data management is and hugely misunderstood area.

For years data has been stored in two basic structures…the spreadsheet and the relational database system. The vast majority of users are using a directory structure to maintain their data which has as its front-end a file manager and some type of desktop search like Spotlight or Google Desktop Search.

Biases of Different Data Forms

Both spreadsheets and RDBMSs have their own biases which show the problems they were originally designed to solve. Spreadsheets are excellent for one off analysis, while relational databases are good as the backend of applications, and for dealing with high amounts of highly structured data which inter-relates. When we speak of relational databases, we are referring to just the databases themselves (Oracle, MySQL, Access, etc..) not the layer that can be placed above it. WordPress, runs on top of a relational structure, but the WordPress application intermediates between the user and the RDBMS. When you work directly with MySQL or Oracle, you are very much in the RDBMS structure. However, not all data fits neatly into the structure of a spreadsheet or a non-frontended RDBMS. Furthermore, both spreadsheets and RDBMSs really lack the ability to easily integrate data from different sources.

RDBMS Front End

Without some type of inter-mediating software RDBMS’s are difficult to use. This is a RDBMS which is straightforward to use called Bento 2 which is pictured below. Bento 2 is excellent at integrating data from different sources.

Bento

Bento Limitations

However, Bento is really RDBMS light (its runs on SQLLite) However while it is easy to use, it is not web based. We have serious concerns about a database that can not be accessed by the internet. This both greatly reduces its distributability, but is a data protection concern, as the database is tied to one computer (although you can perform backups). For this reason, we think Bento should be migrated to an online application, where Bento can either host your information, you can host Bento at the web host of your choice.

WordPress

So far, we have had the most success using WordPress as a database. However, WordPress lacks the tabular data capability that we would like. We hope to address this limitation by integrating WordPress with Google Docs, where Google Docs serves as the data repsitory, and WordPress servers as the presentation layer. We will be writing more on this topic.

Application Replacement

The number of applications that WordPress seems to replace is growing. The more we use it, the more flexible it appears. It is a “killer app” for the network becoming the computer.