Building web applications is a lot like working a tricky maze: sometimes the hardest part is figuring out where to start. Usually a web form needs a script to which it can submit data. But that script needs a table into which it can insert information. But where’s the table? In a database you need to create or set up for web access. And then there’s the table itself: it needs structure. And that’s the way almost every form of every application goes: what starts out as a page that users see often ends up at a back-end structure that’s invisible to everyone but you, the programmer.

It’s always easiest to simply start with the information you want to store. You’ve actually already done some of this, when you created your entry form (look back at Figure 6-1). So here’s basically what you’re collecting from your users right now: