Inventory

As some of you might have noticed, I've got an inventory of my dvd collection online. It's been a good while since I last updated it. Additionally, I've been wanting to add to it my vhs and book collections.

Well, as always seems to be the case with software, the first version just isn't well suited for expansion. So, I spent some time today reworking the database in preparation for supporting multiple types of entities with a more flexible metadata storage mechanism. Ok, too many buzz words. The new database will support:

• Listing both 'X-Files: Season 1' with the ability to get a list of the episodes related to that box set.
  
• Adding attributes to individual inventory listing, such as the imdb link for those items that actually have one.
  
• A nice set of tables to support tracking the people associated with each entry. For example, listing Congo having the author 'Michael Crichton' and then allowing for finding anything else he's done in any capacity, author, producer, etc.
  

Tomorrow I'll start implementing the interfaces to the new database and see how well it will actually work in practice. It won't be hard to convert the original data to the new layout. It'll take considerable time to update the existing inventory entries with more metadata and related people data.

Posted by braddr at February 9, 2003 01:08 AM