Re: Why is database integrity so impopular ?

On Oct 14, 12:09 pm, DBMS_Plumber <paul_geoffrey_br..._at_yahoo.com> wrote:
> On Oct 14, 12:28 am, David BL <davi..._at_iinet.net.au> wrote:
>
> > On Oct 14, 12:17 am, DBMS_Plumber <paul_geoffrey_br..._at_yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
>
> > > If you mandate that a column cannot contain a NULL, setting a DEFAULT
> > > means that when a programmer legitimately doesn't have a value for the
> > > column they aren't obliged to put in there the first thing that
> > > springs to mind.
>
> > How can a programmer legitimately not have a value for the column?
> > Doesn’t that imply that the schema is inadequate (for supporting
> > partial information)?
>
> In engineering, shit happens. Design with failure in mind.
>
> I'm not going to argue for two weeks with 'Max' in accounting about
> about whether he has a legitimate reason to not know the close date of
> some transaction. Waste. Of. Time.  I'm not going to expect
> perfection; especially not out of programmers.
>
> It seems prudent management practice as well as sound engineering to
> say simply that "If you don't know - that's OK - just go with the
> default."

There's the key word for me: engineering.  The difference is between programming code and software engineering.

  Ed Received on Wed Oct 15 2008 - 20:55:17 CEST