So in this post, I will cover what I did for a data model on the resume part of the site. When I was looking into this part, I was looking to see what I needed, or what needed to happen for this to be effective and capable of doing what I wanted. So I started to look at my own resume, and some of the other sites out there that do this. In any application, it is important to understand exactly what data needs to be captured and why. I think that is where most people usually skimp on, is the why. They think once the data is identified, then that is all they need. but it is not so. One need to understand the “why” of the data in order to properly map and design the DB schema.

Take for example a simple address. It consists of a name it belongs to, number, street name, may or may not contain an apartment/suite number (address line 2), city, state and zip code. Now if we have this information we could maybe say that the name is part of a “Persons” table, and they would be linked to the “Address” table where each field is contained. And normally that may work. But why are you collecting this data in the first place? Is it a basic business application to store customer shipping addresses? Or is it for the city planning, emergency response and police units? Could it be for a post office application, or even political boundary application for a government unit? Each one of these questions may alter the way the data is stored, drastically. For a basic customer database, you could get away with two tables, and in the “Address” table you have one field for address1, address2, and so on. For a city-use application, that may not be normalized enough, and you may have to switch out to three or four tables, and break up address fields into three or more including one field for the number, one for the street name, one for the direction of the street, and one for the type of street. And they may be linked to other tables that contain that data. So just knowing that you have the data identified is not the end. You need to understand the “why”.

So, now we go on to this resume application. And remember, I am building this for me, and only me. I am not building a resume repository so others can create theirs and post it online and via Facebook. This is applicable to me. So I need to find the data that will work for me. I also need to find the data that will work for the people looking to hire people like me. What do they want to see, and why? So after I searched through to see where that would be, I came to the following conclusions. . .
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