Chapter 673 This matter is more troublesome
"The problem now is that if the rules and requirements are changed at will, the previous data may have to be reorganized to meet the usage requirements. In other words, every change to the software will have a significant impact on the storage format of the data."

I am still thinking about using a new software to solve the problem, but I can't find a new way.

The comrade from the Statistics Department listened for a while and felt that the situation was similar to before. He then turned his attention to the comrades from the Ministry of Foreign Trade.

Think of a solution, comrade. You are familiar with people who work with computers.

The comrades from the Ministry of Foreign Trade saw his gaze and remembered what their leader had said: "Ask Comrade Gao Zhendong more about this matter."

The leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Trade fully affirm and trust Gao Zhendong.

He looked at Gao Zhendong who was writing and drawing in his notebook.

"Comrade Gao Zhendong, what do you think?"

This was an informal small meeting, and there were no signboards or anything like that. The introduction before the meeting was also relatively simple and general - "relevant experts", but there was no detail as to who these experts were.

As soon as he said this, comrades from various economic and trade schools realized that the young man sitting there who looked like an ordinary staff member was actually Comrade Gao Zhendong.

As ordinary people, others may not know Gao Zhendong, but as people who work in software, it is impossible for them not to know him.

Basically, this name appears on every book they study when they enter the application software industry.

In the recent reports on C6108 and DJS-61, the name of this great man was prominently mentioned.

In this era where personal heroism is not valued, it goes without saying what it means to have one's name mentioned alone in a report.

A group of comrades from the college were whispering to each other.

"Is this Comrade Gao Zhendong?"

"So young? I can't tell."

"Don't look at your youth, in this respect, it's this..."

"You are so honest now? During the internal assessment, you complained that the book he wrote was too difficult."

"Hey, that's my own problem, my own problem."

"Flatterer..."

Amid the whispers of his comrades, Gao Zhendong put down his pen.

Including Chief Engineer Chi from the Operation Institute, everyone looked at him, wanting to hear his opinion and whether he could solve the problem.

"My idea is this: the software must be modified, there is no doubt about that..."

Even when working on a database, the existing software needs to be modified at least once for the database.

When other comrades heard this, they said, "Well, they're all the same, nothing new."

However, Chief Engineer Chi was very familiar with Gao Zhendong's speaking style, and he was waiting for a word.

"but……"

Chief Engineer Chi smiled and said, "Here it comes, as expected."

Gao Zhendong did not stop talking: "But since the problem is with the data, should we focus on the data? If you don't solve the data problem, your troubles will never be solved."

Chief Engineer Chi thought for a moment and asked, "Chief Engineer Gao, do you mean to develop a standard data storage format?"

He knew that Gao Zhendong liked to use standards to solve problems and address them at the root.

Since the data is messy, poorly correlated, difficult to organize, and has poor reusability and sharing capabilities, a standard data storage format should be established.

Now that we have the standard, if all software stores and reads data according to this standard, the problem should be solved.

It should be said that he is indeed the top person in the computer field. This idea is actually of great help in solving the problems of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and the Statistics Department.

But Gao Zhendong wanted more than that. It would be boring to spend so much time and effort just to solve a specific problem. Once the details of this specific problem changed, he would have to do it all over again.

He shook his head and said, "Well, data storage standards must be developed, otherwise your problem cannot be solved. But I think it is more important to solve the problem of data storage and management. My idea is to develop a general software for managing data, and other application software can use the data through this data management software."

He then gave an example: "It's like a warehouse. A comrade who wants to pick up or return materials doesn't need to worry about how or where the materials are stacked in the warehouse. He only needs to deal with the warehouse keeper. If I want 800 screws, the warehouse keeper will give them to me. If I want to return three screwdrivers, the warehouse keeper will take them and put them away."

Chief Engineer Chi and others' eyes lit up as they listened, but Gao Zhendong did not stop talking. "In this way, the storage and management of data will be handed over to the data management system as the warehouse manager. All other application software needs to worry about is how to use the data after they get it. We can call this data management system..."

Having said that, Gao Zhendong wrote three words on the blackboard.

"database!"

Chief Engineer Chi roughly understood what he meant and clapped his hands in applause.

"Database! Great, this is a good name! Simple and clear. Professor Gao has completely decoupled the application software and data."

The lower the degree of coupling, the less things that interfere with each other, and the easier it is for each to develop independently. High cohesion and low coupling, Chief Engineer Chi sees this essence very clearly.

Gao Zhendong smiled and said, "For database management software, there are only a few issues: first, how does it store data? Second, how do other software write and read data? Third, how does it manage this data?"

Other comrades nodded in agreement. Professor Gao's move was brilliant. He directly solved the problem by removing the data from the software system.

After that, Gao Zhendong wrote and spoke on the blackboard, introducing relational databases, structured storage, data tables, data fields, data types, row and column storage, structured query language (SQL), etc.

As for things like database paradigm, he didn't mention them for now. That is a later issue, or rather, it is a specific database design issue and has little to do with the database management system itself. It's too early to talk about it now.

Gao Zhendong's words immediately opened the door to a new world for the people present. It turned out that data could be managed in this way?
"The concept of this relational database is very good. It relies on the relationship between data and uses two-dimensional tables to store data. The two-dimensional tables then form a complete database, which immediately clearly divides the data management levels."

"As for forms, we deal with them every day, but we have never thought about them in this direction."

"Supporting data in different formats in one data table is one of the problems we want to solve."

"The basic operations on data are summarized by using the simplest addition, deletion, modification and query, and the data management is completed. This refining ability is really not exaggerated."

"This structured query language is also very interesting. With it, we can complete customized queries on data, reduce the workload of application software to a minimum, and solve the problem of data usage."

"Professor Gao's trick is that the application software only makes requests, and the database software is responsible for implementation. In this way, as long as the interface between the application software and the database is properly designed, the impact of each other's changes on the other is minimized..."

As people who deal with data every day, the comrades from the Statistics Department may not be very knowledgeable when it comes to software, but they are very knowledgeable about the data itself.

After listening to Gao Zhendong’s explanation, everyone felt that this thing was really good.

Looking back, Professor Gao only learned about his own difficulties and requirements after attending the meeting. In such a short time, he came up with such a complete solution. No wonder the comrades from the Ministry of Foreign Trade asked him specifically, no one else has this ability.

What made them most happy was that Gao Zhendong's solution not only solved their immediate problems, but also completely solved all problems in data storage management and use from the root.

Chief Engineer Chi was even happier than them. He keenly felt that the database system that Gao Zhendong mentioned was a very important technology that could be used in almost all computer application areas.

He guessed right on this point. As one of the most basic computer application technologies, the importance of database is no less than that of operating system.

All MIS (Management Information Systems) definitely have this thing. It is also very rare to find other software without a database.

In Gao Zhendong's previous life, our banking industry once carried out a large-scale action to get rid of IOE. The O here stands for database.

Of course, as for the final result, we can only say that there was a certain effect, which was related to the objective conditions at the time.

Chief Engineer Chi took the responsibility: "Professor Gao, our computing department has done this!"

Comrades from the Statistics Department and economic and trade schools have also expressed their willingness to join this effort. They have experience and can be a great help.

However, Gao Zhendong's next words stunned them all. They almost couldn't believe their ears, except for Chief Engineer Chi.

"This is a rather troublesome matter and will take quite a while. So, give me half a month and I will give you a set of compiled source code so you can debug it slowly."

No, Professor Gao, would you like to reconsider it?

Even people who are not familiar with the software know that this kind of software is not as simple as writing addition, subtraction, multiplication and division functions and drawing a few two-dimensional tables.

The first half of your sentence sounds reasonable, but it takes a lot of time.

But the second half of the sentence is no different from calling us idiots.

Quite a lot of time = half a month?
Is Professor Gao’s concept of time scale a little different from that of ordinary people?
Chief Engineer Chi was the only one who was not surprised. He had built a computer system with thousands or tens of thousands of transistors and had written an operating system all by himself. He could have built a database system as well. They were all systems after all…

In fact, this matter is a bit troublesome. He can search for the C language source code of the open source database he saved, but these source codes are undoubtedly a little bit ahead of the times when used on current computers. Apart from anything else, no matter how streamlined it is, the compiled capacity of M can kill a lot of computers.

But he had a way to cheat.

(End of this chapter)