From oracle-l-bounce@freelists.org Mon Aug 8 11:09:07 2005 Return-Path: Received: from air891.startdedicated.com (root@localhost) by orafaq.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id j78G97Rx022287 for ; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 11:09:07 -0500 X-ClientAddr: 206.53.239.180 Received: from turing.freelists.org (freelists-180.iquest.net [206.53.239.180]) by air891.startdedicated.com (8.12.10/8.12.10) with ESMTP id j78G92IP022272 for ; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 11:09:03 -0500 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by turing.freelists.org (Avenir Technologies Mail Multiplex) with ESMTP id 248011DD563; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 11:08:29 -0500 (EST) Received: from turing.freelists.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (turing [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 24089-10; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 11:08:29 -0500 (EST) Received: from turing (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by turing.freelists.org (Avenir Technologies Mail Multiplex) with ESMTP id 97B931DD516; Mon, 8 Aug 2005 11:08:28 -0500 (EST) From: "David Wendelken" To: Subject: RE: Counterquestion - is Oracle a He or a She - or an It or Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 12:09:03 -0400 Organization: CASEtech, Inc. Message-ID: <003701c59c33$7f34d080$6401a8c0@davidwendelken> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1506 In-Reply-To: X-archive-position: 23564 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: oracle-l-bounce@freelists.org Errors-To: oracle-l-bounce@freelists.org X-original-sender: davewendelken@earthlink.net Precedence: normal Reply-To: davewendelken@earthlink.net X-list: oracle-l X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new-20030616-p9 (Debian) at avenirtech.net X-mailscan-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information X-mailscan-MailScanner: Found to be clean X-MailScanner-From: oracle-l-bounce@freelists.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 2.63 (2004-01-11) on air891.startdedicated.com X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.8 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00 autolearn=ham version=2.63 > >I don't believe Nulls are ambiguous at all. Maybe to you they >are, but not to me. > >They mean nothing. They are the great void. They cannot be >interpreted to mean anything else. Quite simple really. > Yep. Unknown. > >For example, in the case of the allergy question. It might be >appropriate to force the Doctor to select at least one >response. Maybe "No Known Allergies" or "Did not Reply" is >the appropriate response. This is why we have a NOT NULL >constraint. To force something to be entered. yep. > >But in the case of the question "Have you ever been pregnant?" > For a male, this would be appropriate to be null. It might >be appropriate for a female also if she did not want to answer >the question. Assuming human males, I quite disagree. 'Unknown' is not the correct business answer in this example. 'No' or 'Not Applicable' would be correct. The answer to that question is definitely not unknown. Now, we'll both probably leave it blank (i.e., null) because the cost and annoyance of being fancier isn't worth it, but that's a technical implementation decision. -- http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l