pcmodeler wrote:
> The organization I work for is currently implimenting an Oracle based
> product from a 3rd party vendor (it tracks training history). In
> addition to the standard tables (associate information, etc.), there
> are two tables that store a lot of unlike information (employee
> status, country, delivery type, etc.).
>
> Essentially, in order to get employee status, I have to link from the
> associate table to the lookup table to the lookup table_string table
> in order to get their status. Then, in order to get their country, I
> have to link from the associate table to the lookup1 table (a
> copy/alias) to the lookup_string1 table (a copy/alias). Then, to get
> delivery type, I have to link from the associate table to the lookup2
> table (another copy/alias) to the lookup_string table (another
> copy/alias). This can happen up to 4 or more times. It would seem
to
> me that this would cause some horrible performance problem in that
> they are throwing so much unlike information into these tables.
Yes, it stinks. Their only excuse would be if their product has to be
highly flexible so that different customers can define their own lookup
tables, etc. More usually, it is a lazy kludge cooked up by a
programmer who thinks creating 1 general lookup table is cooler than
creating a table per lookup.
Received on Thu Oct 07 2004 - 10:15:57 CDT
