As I was searching for more database articles to blog about, Google returned results for a professional online database(s) for people in the entertainment industry. This site seems like a great site for entertainment professionals. The database must be almost infinite in size as everyone can contribute data similar to the wiki technology used on Wikipedia. I explored the site a little bit trying to find out more about it in the Home section, but could not find anything useful. However, I decided to investigate the frequently asked questions section digging for more information about IDMB Inc. I did not find much about the company either. I did find, however, a question about the source of the data in the database and the nature of its accuracy or reliability. This question made me think about the "garbage in and garbage out" quote from a previous blog and then about transaction management.
I thought about the previous blog because the FAQ section of this site like many websites today issued a disclaimer regarding the source and validity of the information it presents. There was an honest statement about how the information being shared might not be accurate because the sources vary within the industry or otherwise public. Therefore, the information being viewed by various users at some point in time might be inaccurate due to updates to the database. Now, I know this does not necessarily mean that there is no lock on database tables that store the information, but it made me think about transacation management.
I thought about how today I might access some data about a movie or business contact in the industry (given that I may be in that league of site members) that might be incorrect, but later be updated if I accessed it again. Now, I just want to make sure that I have the concept of transaction management correct. Transaction management applies to users with rights to access, read, update, or delete objects in a database. If I access this website just searching for information, then I am only able to read the information as it is presented despite the accuracy. However, if I can update information about a business contact that is being shared with other users in the database then I can only do this when other users are not reading or making changes to the database also. I am assuming that I understand this process to be implemented if we are accessing the same tables e.g. those objects related to the information that I am trying to change. It seems like common sense to me in some instances, but in others I am a little confused. At any rate, I am still learning about transaction management so I will go back to the the validity of data.
If I was networking on this site or researching anything on this site like any others, I would have to worry about how accurate the data is because of the suppliers of the data. Since this site acknowledges that it maintains a database that may contain data that is inconsistent with user input, then it is not reliable and like putting some garbage in to the system and getting some garbage out of it.
This blog is not meant to be heavily analytical or otherwise educationally valid. I was just exploring some of the database concepts and topics I been exposed to in class or have considered via way of blog responses to database articles.
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