Data Model and Structure Descriptions and the Finance System

Abstract

This report consists of two major sections. The first is a discussion of three data model types: Relational, Network, and Hierarchical. These discussions do not intend to fully explain the concepts behind these database designs, but rather give a brief introduction to the data model behind each. The second section is a description of the Finance System. The Finance System is a software system I developed for my parents to use for maintaining their household finances. Design began with several discussions between my parents and I. While they explained the structure of their finances, I planned how these ideas could be implemented. This was a difficult task because I had to take all of this information and divide it into categories while preserving the relationships between these categories. Each category developed into a subsystem. Creating these subsystems was helpful in two ways. First, it made it much easier for me to understand their finances. Second, they made the actual coding much easier because instead of writing one big program, the task was to write several smaller related routines. Even though this is not a new concept in computer programming, it is definitely a good example of the technique. After these subsystems were created, it was just a matter of understanding the details of each. To give an overview of the Finance System, a brief description of each subsystem follows.