Path: text.usenetserver.com!out04b.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!in02.usenetserver.com!news.usenetserver.com!postnews.google.com!2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail From: DBMS_Plumber Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory Subject: Re: Why is database integrity so impopular ? Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 12:36:10 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Lines: 40 Message-ID: <76ec03c9-f012-4971-bc7b-321fa866bdd4@2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com> References: <2ecca0cf-6917-47a3-b95c-8e59e122bbd8@i76g2000hsf.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.4.83.52 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: posting.google.com 1223667371 1136 127.0.0.1 (10 Oct 2008 19:36:11 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 19:36:11 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: 2g2000hsn.googlegroups.com; posting-host=198.4.83.52; posting-account=f9_sxwkAAAAv9yJm2NkOZbNMpGV73MpF User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 (CK-IBM) Firefox/3.0.3,gzip(gfe),gzip(gfe) Xref: usenetserver.com comp.databases.theory:172352 X-Received-Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:36:11 EDT (text.usenetserver.com) On Oct 5, 11:30=A0am, eric.bouchardlefeb...@gmail.com wrote: > What is wrong with modern DB design approaches? =A0And what's the point > of using a big relational DB without the benefits of integrity and > normalization? For what it's worth ..... The situation, I think, is actually getting better. We can and probably always will find examples where the folk in charge of the IT were clueless and the result was a complete debacle. But - I recently spent two days in the company of two very senior IT people from a very successful Web Company. At one point in the meetings -- it was a conference about the challenges posed by the kinds of very, very large databases generated by sensor data -- an unrepentant OO-DBMS type proclaimed that the only way to make this lot work was to tie the data management very closely to the programming language in order to overcome the dreaded impedance mismatch and you know how this story goes. . . Our 'senior IT guy' stood up and basically called the OO-DBMS guy a moron. He then gave a 5 minute rant that might have come out of the mouths of any of our more virulent relational bigots. Programmers -- he asserted -- were very, very, VERY bad for the business. He wanted naked access to structured data by the company's analysts. Central to that? Get the data integrity right. Later, over a cocktail or two, we chatted. In his shop EVERY table has a declared primary key, every column without NOT NULL and DEFAULT must have a documented reason for the deviation. Their code review check list includes questions like "If your code has nested cursor declarations and looping, please explain why in the comments." Good Java people are cheap and plentiful. Good SQL people are rare, and he pays them a lot. His set of interview questions includes "What can you tell me about relational algebra?" An exception? Mebbe. But he's really, really successful. And an aggressive (abrasive) advocate of relational thinking.