Re: SQL Server 2000 Migrate to Oracle

From: Howard J. Rogers <hjr_at_dizwell.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:31:54 +1000
Message-ID: <41332c64$0$24192$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

Galen Boyer wrote:

> On Mon, 30 Aug 2004, hjr_at_dizwell.com wrote:

>> C Stabri wrote:
>> 
>>> I am trying to get some tables out of SQL Server 2000 and into
>>> Oracle 9i. However I am encountering problems.
>>> 
>>> 1. Many of the tables and column names in SQL server are >
>>> than 30 Characters which meansa any auto inport I do fails.
>>> Is there a way to get around this.
>> 
>> Yup. Open the relevant table in SQL Server, and start editing
>> the column names.
>> 
>> I'm sure you will tell me there's a perfectly good reason why
>> your column names are so ridiculously long. But I won't believe
>> it, so don't.

>
> Here's an attribute name:
>
> financial information submission failure penalty
>
> This is spec'd out by the business I'm the datamodeler for, but I
> guess I'm in a ridiculous business, just like the OP cause my
> database doesn't support that name? I abbreviated it to,
> finclinfsubmfailpnlty. I kind of think the fully spelled out
> version is easier to understand.

I would have gone for fisfp myself. Or fispnlty

Nowhere near 20 characters, still less 30.

Actually, I might just have gone for COL14. Who knows?

>
> Howard,
>
> For the first time in my years reading this board, I feel like
> I'm reading a posting from the soapbox of Daniel Morgan. The
> truth is that the <= 30 limit is just that, a limitation.

But it's a limitation that's there because Oracle, in their wisdom, thought that no sensible people would absolutely have to have more than 30 characters. Now, they've made stupid decisions before, but this ain't one of 'em as far as I'm concerned. I can abbreviate your long-winded name in 9 characters, not 30. In 5 if you'll let me.

If you think that's soap-boxing, so be it. It happens to be common sense, I think, not to put too much meaning into table names or column names.

I worked with a designer once whose suggestions for table names read like an essay. When I asked why he wanted a table called 'GroundsMaintenancePeriodWork', he said it was to help the users. When I pointed out the users would never see such a table name anyway, we settled on TblPdWk.

And I know a lot of people who would get ticked off with the 'Tbl' part of that name.

> It
> makes one come up with, to use your adjective, "ridiculous"ly
> difficult to understand abbreviations.

It assumes one is supposed to understand them. Frankly, you could call tables BLAHx and still have a functioning application.

> Its a limitation and
> there is nothing but drinking the Oracle coolaid which makes one
> try to argue differently.

Wrong. One can look at design principles and see that long names are, well.. I don't know what else to call it. Ridiculous is the only word that springs to mind.

> That is why I don't understand your
> posting. You definitely don't drink the Oracle coolaid, but for
> some reason here, you try to defend the limitation as though it
> somehow helps the datamodeler by requiring him to come up with
> names <= 30.

I don't even know what drinking the coolaid means (and yes, I know all about Jonestown). I don't know why you would think that table names or column names should be arbitrarily long!

Let me put it this way: I have never met a design that actually *needed* long table or column names.

I have even worked with an application, perfectly happily, where every table had a primary key column called 'CODE' and a descriptor for the code called 'DESC'.
> Oracle has limitations that are annoying. This is one of them.

Disagree.

That I disagree with you doesn't make my post a Daniel Morgan Soapbox job. It doesn't make it an attack on you. It doesn't make it anything other than a statement of my opinion based on my experience. Which all my posts are, incidentally.

Regards
HJR Received on Mon Aug 30 2004 - 08:31:54 CDT