Re: Why is database integrity so impopular ?

On Oct 5, 6:56 pm, Alfredo Novoa <alfred..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello Eric,
>
> On 5 oct, 20:30, eric.bouchardlefeb..._at_gmail.com wrote:
>
> > It amazes me, though, how many systems rely on the application to
> > manage data integrity.  I work as IT director for a large-size
> > manufacturer and *none* of our applications use integrity.
>
> I supose you are new in the position ;-)

Yes :-) but I have been working as a developper for many years before.

And as a developper, even when doing team OO programming, it was clear that integrity was part of the database. This did not mean that applications could not use their own integrity rules, it only meant that the database was ultimately setting the rules. Additionaly, it is now comon to see databases shared among many applications ... it's therefore common sens to concentrate integrity at the data layer.

When I moved from a developper to a manager position, I had to work with commercial applications I had not developped. Eventually - and I guess it's everywhere the case - we had to share data from those databases to new internally built applications. That's when I first noticed poor data normalizations and complete absence of integrity. Later on, errors at some ERP applications also put in evidence the absence of integrity.

The strangest thing about this is the fact programmer use complex RDBMS as a simple persistent data environemtn. If I had to developp an application with all the integrity concentrated in the application, I would use simple text files to store data. The result would be the same in terms of security but I would obtain more performance. Received on Mon Oct 06 2008 - 16:16:40 CEST