RE: Varchar2....is this Dilbert or what?????

Okay, I agree with just about everything that has been said (as well as having rolled my eyes a bit when I first read it), but in the interests of fairness I will point out that doing an ALTER TABLE to increase column size can invalidate dependent objects (such as all the triggers on the table) which might cause problems in a 24x7 environment. So there is one thing to drop on the other side of the scale.

-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Boligan [mailto:mboligan_at_healthvision.com] Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 6:48 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L Subject: RE: Varchar2....is this Dilbert or what?????

     There is no advantage to making them all 255 (I'd ask them where they got the magic number, why not 256?). The problem with making the column bigger is on the application side, not the database side "alter table xxxx modify(col1 varchar2(30))" can be run anytime the app is capable of handling the larger value.                  

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2000 6:04 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Ok, forgive me if I offend anyone....but the head honchos came and asked what the ramifications would be if we were to make every, yes EVERY varchar2 column in new database the length of 255. The reasoning behind this is...."to keep maintenace down in the future, so we don't have to change the database every time when need a column resized". I'm fairly new to being a database administrator (going on a year), but I have been working in Oracle for about 6 years and quite frankly this sounds totally obsurd! Anyone have any comments??? Pro's, Con's????

Thanks In Advance,
Christine Turner
FTP Database Administrator
IPS Sendero
Phone: (800) 321-6899 ext. 3286
Fax: (480) 946-8224
E-mail: christine.turner_at_ips-sendero.com

-- 
Author: Christine Turner
  INET: christine.turner_at_ips-sendero.com

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Author: Michael Boligan
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