Re: Prescriptive design rules

"Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:46d77f70$0$4022$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net...
> Evan Keel wrote:
>
> > "Evan Keel" <evankeel_at_sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
> > news:EbnBi.1216$3Y1.852_at_newssvr17.news.prodigy.net...
> >
> >>This is a post from comp.databases.mysql:
> >>
> >><<let's say I want to ask a survey question, with checkboxes:
> >>
> >>What animals do you like?
> >>[] giraffe
> >>[] elephant
> >>[] donkey
> >>...
> >>
> >>I'd possibly create a single column named "like" and store each
> >>response as a comma delimited string:
> >>giraffe,donkey
> >>elephant,donkey
> >>etc
> >>
> >>
> >>But further, let's say I have a question with checkboxes and also
> >>radio buttons:
> >>
> >>Please select which animals you own, and tell us how much you like
> >>each:
> >>
> >>[] cat () low () medium () high
> >>[] dog () low () medium () high
> >>[] rat () low () medium () high
> >>...
> >>
> >>What's the best table design to store that? E.g., I could have a
> >>column named "own" and another column named "rate". Or I could have a
> >>column named "cat" which might contain:
> >>yes,low
> >>
> >>and another column named "dog" which might contain:
> >>no
> >>
> >>and another column named "rat" which might contain:
> >>yes,high
> >>
> >>etc. But neither of those seems quite right to me.
> >>
> >>I'm obviously thinking of using one flat table for the whole survey,
> >>is that a very wrong thing to do? I'm assuming that using a flat table
> >>will naturally make it easier to export in spreadsheet format. I'm
> >>also not concerned about the memory usage of a flat file.>>
> >>
> >>If you could provide 10 prescriptive design rules to a front-end
> >
> > developer,
> >
> >>what would they be? Or just 5?
> >>
> >>Evan
> >>
> >
> > You guys are so smug and clever. I was looking for real examples: When
> > nulls are ok. When 2 tables have the same key.
>
> Never. And when they do.

I am working with many PHP programmers. These young folks view the DBMS as a file system. This is where the trouble starts.That is why I asked about 5-10 rules of thumb. Received on Fri Aug 31 2007 - 04:52:14 CEST