CS348 Homework 1

Answer the questions listed below that are from the textbook. Your answers should be either written out very neatly or typed if your handwriting is poor (like mine). Readability and neatness counts and I'll take off points for slop and poor grammar.

On every homework assignment make sure you include your name, the date due, and the assignment number. Every question should be labeled with the question number and page number if appropriate.

Here's the kind of homework I expect using an answer I wrote up for question 1.6 on page 32.

Ed Harcourt

CS348 Homework #1

1/31/11

Question 1.8 (page 34): List four significant differences between a file-processing system and a DBMS.

Answer: Some main differences between a database management system and a file-processing system are:

Both systems store data and contain programs that access the data. However, A DBMS handles both the physical and logical aspects of the data. A file-processing system handles only the physical aspect.
A DBMS minimizes data duplication by ensuring that data is available to a variety of programs that are authorized access it. Whereas data used in a single standalone program in a file-processing system is often not readable by other programs.
A DBMS allows flexible access to data through its data manipulation language (such as SQL) whereas a file-processing system only provides access that is hardcoded in the program.
A DBMS coordinates multiple users that access the same data simultaneously. Furthermore the DBMS can handle problems associated with concurrent access. In a file processing system concurrency and simultaneous access has to be coded by the programmer.

CS 348 - Homework 1 - Due Monday Jan 31