Hello,

I'm currently trying to hone on my design skills for building databases and I'm currently stumped. I have a few questions which might help me better myself.

Do all tables in your database HAVE to connect to another? The currently problem I have is I have two tables which connect however I cannot seem to find a single way to connect either of those tables to one of the other tables in the database. I'm nowhere near an expert in this and I just would like to know if all tables MUST be related to another(so every table has a relationship to another table in the database).

Are there any detailed tutorials out there that help with design? I've googled it time and time again and haven't come up with any that are all that helpful.

I can't seem to get to get this stuff around my head.

there is no fundamental or 'legal' requirement for all tables to interconnect. In a relational db, I guess, its expected that there will be relations between tables. but sometimes its convenient to have one or more tables which don't relate to other tables.

I've seen "orphan" tables store things like configuration data (an EAV like table that stores miscellaenous 'stuff' needed by the application but doesn't justify its own table and isn't needed to provide data integrity checking for other tables)

I guess the real lesson is not to get hung up on the theory and go with what works for you in your design