Re: Semi-OT: It's the Code, Stupid!

Celko has some very good points in that article, nothing new to most on this list.
There are couple of points that I personally do not agree with:

" Proprietary auto-numbering is used in place of actual relational keys, so there is no validation or verification of the data"

He is not a proponent of surrogate keys.

A well normalized ERD of any complexity would cause some rather unwieldy keys in child tables if natural keys were used rather than surrogate keys.

Another way to look at it is that natural keys cause redundant data. ;)

"The schema contains so many proprietary features that it cannot be ported or maintained by anyone who is not an expert in that dialect of SQL"

Don't agree with that one either.
If there are very useful but proprietary features, you should probably use them.
Writing an app to be database agnostic and do it properly is probably more work than just writing the app for each database. JMO

Other than that, a great article.

Jared

On 6/2/05, Jesse, Rich <Rich.Jesse_at_quadtechworld.com> wrote:
>
> How's about a link? Surf to http://www.dmreview.com and then "View Full
> Issue" under the "Current Issue of DM Review Magazine" heading in the
> middle of the page.
>
> Rich
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jesse, Rich
> Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 10:18 AM
> To: oracle-l_at_freelists.org
> Subject: Semi-OT: It's the Code, Stupid!
>
>
>
> For those of you who don't get DM Review magazine, there's an
> excellent article in the June 2005 issue by Joe Celko (still here Joe?)
> called "It's the Code, Stupid!".
>
> It's sad when our third-party vendor's schema falls under what
> he decribes as "worst-case scenario". <sigh>
>
> Rich
>
> Rich Jesse System/Database Administrator
> rich.jesse_at_quadtechworld.com QuadTech, Sussex, WI USA
>
>
>
> --
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>

-- 
Jared Still
Certifiable Oracle DBA and Part Time Perl Evangelist

--
http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l