Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Databases

Your Project: A Time Entry and Billing Database

You have been hired by the law firm of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe to construct a time entry and billing system. Other than a few bad lawyer jokes (such as “Why don’t sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy.”), you don’t know much about the inner workings of a law firm. Based on the name of the system, though, you know two things for certain:

• The system needs to collect and keep time.

• The system needs to create bills.

This might sound overly simplistic, but sometimes that might be all you initially have to go on. As you will learn, knowing one piece of information can lead to learning one, two, or more additional pieces of information. And so the process repeats. Perhaps the most important elements ...