Re: The fable of DEMETRIUS, CONSTRAINTICUS, and AUTOMATICUS

Laconic2 wrote:

>
> "No user serviceable parts inside. Refer all service to a qualified
> technician."
>
> OK for a TV set. Not OK for a mission critical, enterprise wide data
> container and integrator.

I've snipped most of your post, but am attempting to respond to the whole thing.

We'll call Ken the 3rd party vendor or vendor, Laconic2 the inside DBA or just dba, and then there is the user. Going back to the original question of how to enforce a constraint that may change, we have:

1. 3rd party vendor issues DDL. Neither vendor(ken) or dba(laconic) like this, scratch it.
2. End-user makes change. Vendor claims this is cheaper than either vendor or dba doing it.
3. Dba does it.

Speaking entirely selfishly, if I think my code generator is so perfect, and it puts the users totally in control, then I will slap a sign on the database that says, "No user serviceable parts inside". Now the dba is recommending against my product and I've lost a sale.

So can I convince you that using the tool will actually give you more control over the database than you have now? You can do absolutely anything you want to the database. The only request is that you do not issue direct DDL, but that you give input to the builder and let it generate the DDL, so that it is managed. The big advantage of this approach to both you and me is that it makes us partners. Sometimes your changes will be routine, but others may represent fundamental improvements to the system. The builder will export your changes and send them to us and we can then load them into a test system and learn from them. This is all painless and automatic because we are just handing data around.

-- 
Kenneth Downs
Use first initial plus last name at last name plus literal "fam.net" to
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