[Koha-devel] Re: koha

[Chris Cormack]

Hi ya,
> 
> > Also i'd like to speak with the guy/gal who wrote Koha's databases.
> 
> I'm not sure who it is, but he/she should be here on the devel list.
> 

I guess that would be Olwen Williams and I. 
Brief Koha history for those who arent aware. Koha was written because HLT
needed a new library system. Their existing system had some serious y2k bugs
and just wasnt going to work anymore.

They needed something that would work over phonelines to their branches.
Thus Koha was born.
And the race to get it done before jan 1 2000 started. The database grew
basically as a structure that would allow us to get the data out of their
old system and into koha as fast as possible and without losing data.

As Sergey has mentioned its a fairly organic structure, and needs some
direction and normalisation.

Where am I coming from? Well I really want koha to be used by lots of ppl
and to be a useful and complete tool. But I also want it to still be usable
by HLT. So any database changes need to allow the existing data to be mapped
to the new structure. And that HLT continue to have a system that functions
the way they want. (If that makes sense)

Steve Tonnessen has been working on database changes to get MARC in and out
of koha. And I think Paul Polain is keen to help out on that.

I did draw some diagrams in the dim dark past, which only bear some
relationship to the current db structure now. A UML diagram or ERD would be
a great place to start at least describing the current structure.
Then we can work on a new one

Well thats my friday morning thoughts anyway :)

Chris
-- 
Chris Cormack                                                     Programmer
025 500 789                                        Katipo Communications Ltd
chris at katipo.co.nz                                          www.katipo.co.nz