Re: Database in depth, by C.J. Date

that is generic across all software disclipines. People over-engineer code and design to make it look nice, when your primary goal is to cost effectively satisfy the business requirement. I have seen people spend weeks working on trivial things to get it 'just right'. When it was good enough to start with. 'Good is the enemy of good enough'.

On the other hand, you have the people who just slap stuff together with no thought to maintenance or future development. I think you need to strike a balance. You need to think about the big picture, but still meet deadlines and get work done.

I have found that most people either over engineer and bicker about petty details or just slap stuff together.

> Thinking of some of the systems we've had put in by suppliers and the
> conversations I've had with their design/development people, I suspect
> that some people in the field (quite a lot of them actually) worry
> more about how elegantly they can describe the data model in
> mathematical terms and not so much about "Will it work?" There was a
> similar culture going around when I used to be a C developer.
>
> I think there has to be a balance between producing pretty diagrams
l

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