jpcicero

What about to have the following tables. device (PC,Router,etc) device_type (descriptive table) device_network (how devices are linked ) device_spec I should use a device_spec table (device specification, where all specific properties are stored for each device). For instance, device_spec_id | device_id | attribute | value 1 | 1 | ip address | 168.... 1 | 1 | location | server room Using the device_type you now witch attributes belongs to each device. But I not very sure about what is the problem you are trying so solve. Hope to help you.

OOP vs Regular Old Functions, it is a huge topic, these are two different methodologies to face one problem. I can imagine that you have experience in procedural methodology but you need some OO background, if not, sorry for this reply, you will found thousands of oo tutorials on the web. Basically OO approach will well you to: 1. Ease analysis, you always think your problem using objects (Customer, Invoice, Bank Account, are all objects). What these object does?, well, these are their methods, Customer->buyItem($item). 2. Reuse your code, it's easier to call an object customer, every where inside one or more applications. 3. Less errors, if you have a well designed object, with a clear interface (how it communicate with the context), will works always (theoretically ) 4. You can use unit testing. 5. Inheritance and composition they are a huge concepts that will give you a lot of benefits, for instance, when you need to create a framework. There is a lot of benefits by using OO approach, will be so extensive to explain here, my intention it's only to encourage you to use it.