> I'd be tempted to model the data structures and relationships in the
> abstract, and then figure out how to represent those in SQL (or any
> other tool, including plain text).
Your temptation is good intuition; listen to it. Producing
something concrete like a SQL model is effectively syntax -- something
you never want to do first.
Producing the model and using it to produce represenations from it
(be they text, sql, or whatever) works better.
Also, this approach allows you to leverage the strenghts of each
tool as appropriate; if your model can be represented either as text
or SQL, you can presumbably convert between the two forms as needed.
For example, SQL is good for structured search, whereas text can be
better for a mostly undirected browse.
References:
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