RE: Theory v Practice

OK. For everyone's benefit, this is commonly known as the "Developer's Paradox". Essentially, it means that developers write more code so they are brought back to maintain the stuff.

Your developers have tragically forced you into this. Instruct them on proper database/application/system design and then send them back to kindergarten.

PK & FK constraints are STANDARD in all relational databases and indexes are generally mandatory for PKs and sometimes optional for FKs. For performance, make them standard. The list is endless, however, Tim or Cary can Really add ammunition.

OK gentlemen, I have left the door WIDE open.

Thank You

Stephen P. Karniotis
Product Architect
Compuware Corporation

Direct:	(248) 865-4350
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Email:	Stephen.Karniotis_at_Compuware.com
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 -----Original Message-----
Sent:	Wednesday, October 23, 2002 2:39 PM
To:	Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject:	Re: Theory v Practice

  When code is developed to be "database generic", developers will steer away from code for a specific database. However, foreign key and check constraints hardly fall into this category. I don't use Sqlserver or DB2, but I would guess that they implement FKs and constraints. Your developers are wasting a lot of time coding something that the database will do for them. The more logic you can put into the database, the better off you are. They'll have to code the constraints all over again when they want to develop a web front-end. You'll probably see some bad data into your tables due to coding bugs. Oracle isn't bug free, but they've got the constraints nailed down pretty well.

Jay

>>> C.Healey_at_hhsuk.com 10/23/02 01:45PM >>>
The developers working on our new VB app are also responsible for setting up the Oracle DB behind it. The app is for an order entry/despatch/warehouse system with >5 million customers and >1000 orders per day. We have nearly 400 tables. They are not planning on using primary keys/secondary keys, as they say they will handle all the constraints via VB.
I only have a theoretical knowledge of database design, which says this is very wrong. Is the Oracle system being used as anything more than an expensive file system? In real world scenarios, is this a common practice?

Regards

Craig Healey

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