Re: How to model searchable properties of an entity

In message <dqudncaVN9gpx77cRVn-vw_at_comcast.com>, Laconic2 <laconic2_at_comcast.net> writes

>People who can't do data modeling can't use EAV.

Regrettably it doesn't stop them from trying. As Joe Celko points out, you can get away with it for a while but it will probably collapse in a heap. Librarians have successfully made a system like this work but it takes a prodigious amount of effort. For a start all of the users are likely to have at least two degrees, one of them in library science itself. Secondly they have an auditing system in place that analyses new additions and vets them for acceptability, then propagates metadata to every other librarian that needs it.

Some 20 years ago I invented a way of building and maintaining an e-a-v database using similar techniques. Now I have the Internet and WWW it could be built. There are still situations where something like this could be useful but I doubt that there is space in the market for more than one.

-- 
Bernard Peek
London, UK. DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author. Will work for money.