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Re: A question of principle

From: Jack L. Swayze Sr. <keystrk_at_feist.com>
Date: 1996/10/24
Message-ID: <54mpgm$mn3@wormer.fn.net>#1/1

"Bard" <bwskiles_at_adpc.purdue.edu> wrote:

>I am a DBA. We have several developers working with our setup of Oracle
>Data Warehouses. The source of our data is a mainframe.
 

>I am, on principle, opposed to using blanks where nulls
>ought to be. I find the blanks to be misleading and a misuse of Oracle. I
>also believe it sets a poor precedence for future Oracle applications.

Dont take the issue on 'principle' - instead 'sell' the concept of using nulls.

This would be very easy to do for numeric values. If they have 'codified' a null as a zero value, then you can easily show the power of nulls by demonstrating how doing an average over a column would be skewed by the presence of zeros instead of nulls.

The more you show how the power of the database management system is unleashed (and how it makes the programming easier and the processing faster) by the presence of nulls, the more they will begin to accept it.

If you are in business to make money, no one makes money by winning a religious debate over DBMS principles. Instead you will 'win' by showing them how to 'win' but utilizing the DBMS to their advantage.


'Keystroke'
KeystrkTX_at_AOL.COM Received on Thu Oct 24 1996 - 00:00:00 CDT

Original text of this message

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