
How I Invented Databases - amasad
https://medium.com/childhood-hacks/how-i-invented-databases-89dfa563b65#.nrrhg3a6u
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orionblastar
Yes I had an experience writing a baseball stats program on a Commodore 64
using BASIC. All of the data were in data statements and saved with the
program on tape until we could afford a floppy drive and then store data in a
serial file and load it in the Baseball stats program.

I too used Visual BASIC, when MS-Access 1.0 first came out middle of the
1990s, I had an interview at a tools making company and they asked me to make
a record collection database in MS-Access and even if I never used it before I
figured it out because everything was GUI. So I created tables and forms in
less than an hour and had a data entry form as well.

Visual BASIC 3.0 and 4.0 they had a RDO object to connect to a database using
ODBC drivers. Had an AS/400 and used Showcase ODBC to connect to the DB2
database on the IBM AS/400 for Windows PCs. Used RDO for MS-Access and SQL
Server Databases. Then later on ADO replaced RDO.

Then in the Dotnet languages they have ADO.Net that does the same thing to
connect to databases.

In my Linkedin profile, former managers and coworkers would endorse me for
databases, because I was always fixing the database after someone else messed
it up and when they needed a new one nobody knew how to make one, and so I
made the databases for them. Converted from Excel and Access to SQL Server as
well. Had a VB program that read the Excel or Access database and ran through
the ADO database recordset to insert them into SQL Server in another table.

I originally got into computers to learn how to make video games, but found
that solving business problems and doing business apps would be more
profitable because the video game market had crashed in the 1980s.

~~~
amasad
>Yes I had an experience writing a baseball stats program on a Commodore 64
using BASIC. All of the data were in data statements and saved with the
program on tape until we could afford a floppy drive and then store data in a
serial file and load it in the Baseball stats program.

So you had the program rewrite itself every time it ran to edit the data
statements? That would be fascinating.

I think sharing these stories are awesome. Constraints in programming are
always fascinating and they create awesome hacks. And to me the most
fascinating is when you invent something radical -- at least to you -- that is
actually a known concept in Computer Science.

~~~
orionblastar
Yeah I lost the disks I had with the C64 when I let a friend borrow it and he
never returned it and moved away from our neighborhood.

But programming the Commodore 64 was a challenge because BASIC on it was
primitive and older than some of the others out there like the Atari 8 bit
series. I learned what peek and poke accessed parts of the C64 memory you
needed to know what they did to write video games and control sprites. If you
wanted to write code that changes the data statements you had to know what
area of memory it used and use poke to put it there. In a way I guess you are
right that it was self modifying code in that it changed the data statement.
I'm sure other people did that as well. When all you have is a Commodore 64
before the Internet, best you could do is read magazines like Compute!s
Gazette and get on BBS systems and talk to other programmers to get ideas and
share tricks we learned.

The Commodore 64 was like the Raspberry PI of the 1980s, it was cheap and it
worked. I might buy a Raspberry PI some day.

~~~
amasad
That's a very cool story! Let me know if you'd like to publish it on Medium
under the "childhood hacks" page I put together. I'm trying to get as much
stories like this under one roof as possible. Should be fun.

------
ovt
I tried to make a database of sorts as a kid.

Reading about relative files and such in the commodore 1541 manual: Went very
well. Writing a program out on paper: Went very well. Getting it to work at
all on the computer: Total failure.

I just couldn't think clearly enough about how to go about debugging a
program.

~~~
amasad
To VB's credit they did a great job with debugging tools. The stepping
debugger was great but to me the "immediate" (which is a repl of sorts) was
magical.

