Re: Any new thoughts on OTLT (One True Lookup Table)

"Jerry Gitomer" <jgitomer_at_erols.com> wrote in message news:pan.2004.03.28.04.30.53.304042_at_erols.com...
> In the real world we have documentation that developers are expected to
> refer to before they start coding. The reason has to do with the fact
> that the system will probably still be in use long after the original
> developers have moved on.
>

In the real world, there are millions of database professionals who derive value from data stored in databases. In many cases, the objects that wrote the data are no longer functional, and the documentation is as fragmentary and incomplete as the Dead Sea scrolls.

In a well built database, one of the functions of the schema is to document the data itself (as distinct from documenting the process that wrote it). The database contains facts about the real world, coded as data. The database schema contains facts about the data, useful for decoding it. Unlike other forms of documentation, it's bound with the data it documents.

A good database professional, one that can read and decode the schema, is well on his or her way to decoding the data that the schema describes. And that's one of the main ways that data in a database is more valuable than data in a flat file. That's why databases were invented, so that database professionals could turn the data into value. Received on Sun Mar 28 2004 - 20:34:57 CEST