Re: EAV (Re: Object-relational impedence)
Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:37:08 +0000
Message-ID: <slrnfu5m84.djr.eric_at_tasso.deptj.demon.co.uk>
On 2008-03-20, topmind <topmind_at_technologist.com> wrote:
>
>
> David Cressey wrote:
>> "Eric" <eric_at_deptj.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
>
>> >
>> > EAV is a way of misusing an RDBMS, and could be used for any subject
>> > domain - and your schema description sounds like EAV.
>
> EAV (attribute/value pair tables) is not always bad. It is one
> approach to allowing user-definable "columns" and/or times when
> dynamicy is needed so that a DBA does not have to do the new-column-
> shuffle all the time.
>
> I agree it can be a performance killer in some circumstances, but
> often that's the tradeoff for flexibility.
>
It _might_ be OK as an extension to a properly designed core, otherwise I think the price is too high. There are other ways to do the flexibity bit.
And Mr Perryman's app sounded like pure EAV anyway.
E. Received on Thu Mar 20 2008 - 22:37:08 CET