My father is a doctor. He is insisting on writing a database to store non-critical patient information, with no programming background
- by Dominic Bou-Samra
So, my father is currently in the process of "hacking" together a database using FileMaker Pro, a GUI based databasing tool for his small (4 doctor) practice. The database will be used to help ease the burden on reporting from medical machines, streamlining quite a clumsy process.
He's got no programming background, and seems to be doing everything in his power to not learn things correctly. He's got duplicate data types, no database-enforced relationships (foreign/primary key constraints) and a dozen other issues. He's doing it all by hand via GUI tool using Youtube videos.
My issue is, that whilst I want him to succeed 100%, I don't think it's appropriate for him to be handling these types of decisions. How do I convince him that without some sort of education in these topics, a hacked together solution is a bad idea? He's can be quite stubborn and I think he sees these types of jobs as "childs play"
How should I approach this? Is it even that bad an idea - or am I correct in thinking he should hire a proper DBA/developer to handle this so that it doesn't become a maintenance nightmare?
NB: I am a developer consultant of 4 years and I've seen my share of painful customer implementations.
