Oracle FAQ Your Portal to the Oracle Knowledge Grid
HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US
 

Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> speaking of Dr. Paul Dorsey / (Fwd) RE: Where to handle referential integrity and other data

speaking of Dr. Paul Dorsey / (Fwd) RE: Where to handle referential integrity and other data

From: Eric D. Pierce <PierceED_at_csus.edu>
Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 14:56:27 -0700
Message-ID: <F001.002E3532.20010405150048@fatcity.com>

Warning, the following comments (presumably in short form) are from somone who not only has a Phd, but a minor in philosophy. :)

ep

I have stopped being surprised by depth of the stupidity exhibited by people in this industry.
The development team quote mentioned in your post sounds like a good candidate for an addition to my top ways to guarantee project failure poster.
This is right up there with the comment: "I broke my PC's cup holder."

And people wonder why the industry suffers from a 70% project failure rate.

Paul Dorsey
Dulcian, Inc.

Hi!

Even if you make the Business Rule about the unpaid bills, I doubt if that can or would be enforced; else we would hardly be having this thread. I just had a development team tell me they would not trust to put anything into Oracle and become tied to it. Rather write all the stuff in the preferred language of the day (a flavour of Java). **and** these folks have made a business decision to use Designer as the Tool.

>From: "Openshaw, Michael" <michael.openshaw_at_verizon.com>
>Reply-To: ODTUG-DEV2K-L_at_fatcity.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list ODTUG-DEV2K-L <ODTUG-DEV2K-L_at_fatcity.com>
>Subject: RE: Where to handle referential integrity and other data
>Date: Thu, 05 Apr 2001 12:06:21 -0800
>
>Sell the time? If you are *not* going to take advantage of the new
>capability of each version of software, then why migrate?
>(and that is a serious question. Many migrations are done simply to be on
>the latest version, not for any specific business need).
>
>As to selling referential integrity, tell the decision makers that you'll
>program the system so that every unpaid bill whose customer gets deleted is
>taken out of their paycheck.
>
>*Every* system I've ever investigated that did not have referential
>integrity in the database had substantial 'orphan' record problems.
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Gabriel Galanternik [SMTP:ggalanterni_at_tesis-oys.com.ar]
> > Sent: Thursday, April 05, 2001 2:41 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ODTUG-DEV2K-L
> > Subject: RE: Where to handle referential integrity and other data
> >
> > first, my stand. I think that referential integrity in the db is a must,
> > but, let's play devil's lawyer:
> > what about systems migrated from oracle 6? there you have no
>constraints.
> > then you migrated to earlier oracle 7, with no stored programs and so,
> > now, you, maybe, are at new 8i db.
> > you also migrated your applications from forms2 to forms3, then to
> > developer
> > 1.x and so on.
> >
> > How you sell the time needed to implement referential integrity at db
>when
> > you lived without them so many years...?
> > I expect no answers, just to say that there some things you can't fight
> > against.
> >
> > just my .02
> > Gabriel Galanternik
> > Tesis OyS
> > Republica Argentina
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ODTUG-DEV2K-L
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 7:15 PM
> >
> >
> > I think you are all being way to subtle in your opinions.
> > I think that anyone who does not use referential integrity in the DB is
> > wrong.
> > To build data checking into the applications and not in the database is
> > professional misconduct.
> > If the project fails, this would constitute legal evidence of
> > incompetence.
> > Under no circumstances should you EVER contemplate only using
>application
> > based data error checking.
> >
> > There are many good arguments for this, most of which have been well and
> > eloquently stated on this thread.
> >
> > That said, I want to take issue with the opinion that you then build the
> > same logic in the applications in order to provide humane error
>messages.
> > I
> > think a much better approach is to have the error checking done only in
> > the
> > DBMS and to trap the error message and then to replace the bad message
> > with
> > a better one.
> >
> > Paul (ever the subtle one) Dorsey
> > Dulcian, Inc.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Lindberg
> > Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 3:36 PM
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ODTUG-DEV2K-L
> >
> >
> > I have always been a fan of database integrity. Oracle is a fantastic
> > database and I feel that utilizing the features it has built-in is a big
> > plus.
> >
> > Robert Lindberg
> > Sr. Systems Analyst
> > Wilsonart International
> > 254-207-2831
> >
> > >>> "Cantieri, Cathy M." <cmcantie_at_utmb.edu> 04/03/01 02:31PM >>>
> >
> >
> > I am wondering what the popular opinion is on data checking -- whether
>to
> > build referential integrity and other data checking into the database or
> > to
> > handle it in the front end application?
> >
> > I have been going along building as much referential integrity, db
> > triggers,
> > procedures, views to secure the data in the database so no matter how
>the
> > data was accessed the integrity of it would not be compromised. Now I
>just
> > attended a meeting where web development is going on they are building
>ASP
> > pages for a huge database (lots of tables, large volumes of data and
> > growing
> > rapidly). Their method is to do all the work on the front end pages to
> > limit
> > the number of hits to the database. They don't use views, don't build
>ref
> > integrity. Is this really a huge savings? And is it even safe? My
> > understanding is that their application users are not database users so
> > they
> > do not have their own log in to the database itself but there are many
> > developers on this project and they do have access to the data tables. I
> > have not done any real web development yet and I need to know if I need
>to
> > change my way of thinking..
> >
> > Thanks for any comments

...

Fat City Network Services    -- (858) 538-5051  FAX: (858) 538-5051
San Diego, California        -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists
--------------------------------------------------------------------
To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing). Received on Thu Apr 05 2001 - 16:56:27 CDT

Original text of this message

HOME | ASK QUESTION | ADD INFO | SEARCH | E-MAIL US