Hi Axel, if we want to get really picky, we could argue that even written language on a sheet of paper is an abstraction. It just depends on the level.
Office users (in fact everyone who finished school just about successfully) are used to dealing with paper documents. When giving them an electronic representation of those documents, they don't care if the info is picked up from tables, from a notes document or appears just magically. In many cases they want a user exprerience that somehow mimics (and possibly extends) the concept of documents.
Now, for a developer, simply storing the info in what the user recognizes as a document in something that technically represents a document as well, requires only a small level of abstraction. Mainly caring about stuff like data types or maximum storage capacity. Even non-programmers can do that. Creating (and maintaining) a data structure for a relational design definitely requires a more complex methodology, higer skills and a higer degree of abstraction.
You could still make a valid point by stating, that db schemas as simple as that can be generated dynamically by software, as demonstrated by some of the applications that ship with Workplace.
Hi Axel, if we want to get really picky, we could argue that even written language on a sheet of paper is an abstraction. It just depends on the level.
Office users (in fact everyone who finished school just about successfully) are used to dealing with paper documents. When giving them an electronic representation of those documents, they don't care if the info is picked up from tables, from a notes document or appears just magically. In many cases they want a user exprerience that somehow mimics (and possibly extends) the concept of documents.
Now, for a developer, simply storing the info in what the user recognizes as a document in something that technically represents a document as well, requires only a small level of abstraction. Mainly caring about stuff like data types or maximum storage capacity. Even non-programmers can do that. Creating (and maintaining) a data structure for a relational design definitely requires a more complex methodology, higer skills and a higer degree of abstraction.
You could still make a valid point by stating, that db schemas as simple as that can be generated dynamically by software, as demonstrated by some of the applications that ship with Workplace.