Databases

The information on databases that we had to read for this week was..a lot. While I would consider myself to be slightly ahead on the IT learning curve of average individuals my brain still gets tangled when delving into the ins and outs of different databases and how the actual data gets stored. Luckily, I still recognize their extreme importance to society, especially in this digital age, but it is so surprising to think about the amount of times we access a database without acknowledging that it is one.
Which brings me to the Internet Movie Database, most likely one of my favorite websites of all time. IMDb is an external database, meaning that it has "data collected for use amongst multiple organizations" (Wiki article). According to IMDb's Wikipedia entry, it started out as a hobby of Col Needham (IMDb CEO) in early 1989. He, along with other film enthusiasts, kept lists pertaining to movies, such as one on the actresses who had the most beautiful eyes. This group would go to a Usenet group and post their lists there via a bulletin board called rec.art.movies. However, it wasn't until October 17, 1990, when Needham wrote a series of Unix shell scripts that made the lists searchable, and therefore, a data base.
Obviously the website's interface has evolved over time. Now a visitor to the site is able to access virtually any movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games or fictional characters that have ever been featured in entertainment. Heck, even my sophomore year screenplay writing professor has his own page for that one Emmy he won in 1989. A link to any particular page will have subsections to address topics such as a film's plot synopsis or a character's most memorable quotes. My personal favorite has always been the trivia section, where there is always a surprise waiting.
Even though the underworkings of databases seem tedious, it makes their infrastructure much more fascinating when you look at some of your favorite web destinations. Taking a closer look at IMDb has even inspired me to try and reread exactly what goes into such a construction.