Re: Stupid Database Tricks

Clinging to sanity, "Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> mumbled into her beard:
> "robert" <gnuoytr_at_rcn.com> wrote in message
> news:da3c2186.0406181807.3d511df_at_posting.google.com...
>
>> 0. we like to keep things familiar for the 60 year old COBOL programmers
>> who wrote version 1. we keep each table in its own file. we prefer
>> to manage integrity in the application.
>>
>> -- that's a quote. i'm really not kidding
>
> Hey, watch that stuff!
> I am not now, and never have been, a COBOL programmer (card carrying or
> otherwise).
> But I am 60 years old. My brain works almost as well as it did when I was
> 20. And my knowledge base is better.

This is all about the "old dog can't learn new tricks" adage.

Which is untrue; there are actually _two_ categories of people:

• There are those that are too "brittle" to _ever_ learn new tricks, at any age,
• Those that are usefully flexible will get too old when the body becomes incapable of doing what the brain tells it to do.

I have heard of preachers that fall into the first category; they prepared 50 sermons while in theological school, and can only reuse that cycle for a few years before realizing that they have nothing new to say. They were obsolete before ever getting out of school.

In contrast, my retired "accountant dad" does more fancy 'computer stuff' than some would-be-called-professionals; he did learn some "new tricks."

Some people are capable of learning; others quite clearly aren't.

> Aside from that, "we prefer to manage integrity in the application"
> is probably the ultimate stupid database trick.

Particularly when "the application" is a misnomer...

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