Checking What We Teach

This post originally appeared on the Software Carpentry website.

Back in May, Jonathan Klaasen wrote a post about setting up a lab data management system. After re-reading it, I think it's a good reality check on what we teach about databases: from what I can tell, we cover most of the information management needs that Jonathan touches on. I also think it could be a great motivating example for a lesson on databases, and on how to combine them with other tools like shell scripts. If you've ever built or used something like what Jonathan describes, I'd be grateful for comments describing where your setup is the same and where it's different.