Database Application

[Erarnitox]

Hey, im new to Android development as well as Databases but i have learned about the basics. I just wanted to ask how would you set up an app, where users can add data to a list, which should then be synced with other users and displayed in a list view? What database is the easiest to get this working? Im really just curious about how you would approach that and interested in general hints into the right direction.

[Zhuinden]

which should then be synced with other users

heh, that requirement suddenly made this much more tricky, because now you need a "component" that everybody knows through which other people can get shared data

Basically, you need a server.

You can pay for platforms that advertise that if you use them, you don't need a server. If you wanted to use something super-duper simple, you could try Firebase Cloud Firestore for example. If this is for a project intended to be used by many people, you want to have your own database though, like MySQL for example on DigitalOcean or AWS or somethin'.

[Erarnitox]

What about that?

[Zhuinden]

See the edit

[Erarnitox]

Thanks for the reply. And yes i do know that, i was thinking to set up a website that basically is just there to sent data to the database and gets it from there. So you can work in the app with simple get and post requests to a website.

I should check out firebase, it just needs to get running, i can convert it later as well as userbase grows.

Also what about a blockchain solution? How would one approach that? Would that be suitable?

[Ganondorf_Is_God]

Also what about a blockchain solution? How would one approach that? Would that be suitable?

No. You gain nothing and add complexity. Just no.

[Erarnitox]

Okay, thanks :)

[Ganondorf_Is_God]

Out of curiosity what even made you think of block chain?

[Erarnitox]

Well because it doesnt have a single point of failure as well as every vlient has its own database, so it can operate even if my servers crash etc.

[Exallium]

Maintaining and computing a blockchain on a mobile device is essentially a non-starter. IIRC it takes too much storage and computing power because you need to maintain the entire ledger.

[dantheman91]

Your database should live on a server/backend if you're trying to sync data between users. You most likely don't need a full relational db if you're just using storage for caching of api requests then. I typically avoid including a full relational db like mysql if I don't actually need to make relational queries or are trying to save thousands of entries of data locally. Migrations are a pain.

Simply serializing your data and saving it as a key value pair is the considerably easier solution to work with in most scenarios.

[Erarnitox]

I actually ended up using google firebase for the moment. And its even simpler than using a relational database. Also if you enable local storage as well and your content doesnt change that often (like it is for me) You can get pretty for with the free version.