Re: OTLT again

Laconic2 wrote:

>
> Most of the people who adopt OTLT do so for reasons like the one you
> outline. They want to enable user defined attributes. User data is
> supposedly different from metadata.
>
> Thus:
>
> CREATE TABLE NEW_ATTRIBUTE_LOOKUP
> (NEW_ATTRIBUTE_ID NUMBER,
> NEW_ATTRIBUTE_NAME TEXT);
>
> Generates metadata.
>
> INSERT (ATTRIBUTE_TYPE, ATTRIBUTE_NAME) INTO LOOKUP_TABLE_MASTER
> VALUES (:NEW_ATTRIBUTE_ID, :NEW_ATTRIBUTE_NAME);
>
> Generates user data.
>
> One of these is seen as "better" than the other from several points of
> view.
> If I start talking about OTLT, I'll start trashing, and I said I wouldn't
> do that.
>
> But the real discussion ought to be about user defined attributes. Is
> this
> a good idea or a bad idea? If it's a good idea, then we can focus on the
> best way of implementing it. If it's a bad idea, we can focus on the
> best way of talking the people who set the requirements out of asking for
> this feature.

Let me toss a pre-question in here. Before we decide if it is a good idea, we may ask if it is actually necessary or only appears to be necessary. OTLT has problems that all three of us agree exist, so we have prior motivation to avoid it.

Zsolt, can you offer any additional information about the data that may reveal a different kind of solution? There may be different table layouts and techniques that avoid OTLT altogether.

-- 
Kenneth Downs
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