In the whole of the Web development process, decisions should not be made rashly.
They should be based on thoughtful consideration by knowledgeable team members using up-to-date resources.
Decisions for software are no exception, particularly because it is quite costly in both time and money to try to reverse course and switch from one software tool to another once work has begun.
The process of selecting software is further complicated by the great numbers of options available.
An incredible amount of human brainpower has gone into the creation and refinement of these software tools over the past few decades.
To review, there are four types of software:
- Languages
- Applications
- Databases
- Bundled software solutions
Remember that there is some overlap between the categories, but this breakdown does reflect some essential groupings of software tools.
You learned about the first two categories, languages and applications, in the last module. Now you will be moving on to study the last two
categories. When you are finished learning the content of this module, you will be able to:
- List the functions of databases
- Describe the four basic database models
- Explain the characteristics and protocols of back end Web databases
- Explain the importance of data modeling techniques
- Describe the functions of security software
- Explain the types and benefits of bundled solutions, giving common examples
In the next lesson, you will learn about standard functions of databases.