MindModel: A fascinating easy-to-use true relational database Posted 2:26 PM by Nathaniel

I just discovered MindModel. These folks seem to have captured the essence of what people think they mean when referring to "relational databases," and put it--mostly--in a form that is truly accessible to almost any knowledge worker.

Relational databases are incredibly powerful tools. Most people who use the term don't really understand the underlying concepts; they relate to the general meaning of relational, and are often dismayed, when they approach, say, MS Access, to find out how complex it is to produce and maintain one. Oracle? SQL Server? Forget it.

Even FileMaker Pro, an amazing cross-plaform RDB, is quite daunting, with its semi-procedural, semi-existential programming language (I'm making up the terms to describe it; nothing else seems to match).

If you need to organize any kind of information at all--and I do mean "any"--you would probably benefit from downloading the 30-day trial of this $200 (desktop version) product. There is also a web server version available, so you can base a database-driven website on it. A multi-user version exists, too, and a Palm version is coming.

MindModel is very open in several ways: You can import and synchronize Outlook contacts; it is a good Microsoft XML citizen; and it reads and writes a variety of delimited-text formats.

The help file, which is fully accessible from the main website, is a model of gently humorous lucidity, and worth reading as an example of excellent documentation, even if you don't need the database.

Clearly, I have not had the time to fully explore this product, so please take this only as a pointer, not as a review. The one thing that other RDBs make much of that is not obvious in MindModel is input forms. MS Access and FM Pro, for example, allow their users to easily draw forms that can look like anything. MM does not seem to have such a feature. In fact, to gain control over some of its reports, you must learn a bit about XML. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing, nor a particularly difficult thing; but it is definitely less, shall we say, "sugar-coated," than the approaches taken by others. More on this point as I learn more.

The entire approach is one of a simple grammar, with "nouns," "verbs," "prepositions," and other familiar lingistic terms, whose MM meanings are consistent, largely, with their linguistic usage. I don't think I can easily do it justice here; visit the website and see for yourself.

My initial judgment: A powerful tool that deserves much more recognition. What are your thoughts?