Which Oracle book was this?

Years ago, I skimmed an Oracle book at the bookstore. I'm sure it was written by Tom Kyte.

In it, he critiqued a system that would store data in rows, instead of simple columns! And, it performed very badly.

So, instead of a typical table structure:

field1
field2
field3
field4

There was a lookup table with field codes, and what they meant.

Fieldcode_id
Fieldcode_name

The "data" table would be structured:

Fieldcode_id
value
etc.

I remember reading words to the effect:
"How did it perform? Horribly, pathetically, awfully!"

I'm unfortunately dealing with such a system now, and would like to show this critique to the brass.

Which book can I find this in please?

Thanks a lot! Received on Sat Oct 25 2008 - 02:43:16 CDT