Chapter 2. The Basics

Spreadsheet Versus Database

Both databases and spreadsheets are critical components in a software infrastructure that is designed to manage large amounts of financial history information. Databases serve as information repositories because they can store many years of data for thousands of securities. A well-designed system contains many tables that are linked together and indexed to form a complete structure containing a variety of financial metrics for both individual securities and markets. Databases have a tendency to grow over time as more information is acquired. For example, a price-history database might be extended with large amounts of text data extracted from news wires. This additional data would be stored separately ...

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