Database design dilemma - not null vs nullable

Hi all,

We have an outside vendor developing an application, which we will = ultimately inherit for maintenance. They are porting this application = from a different database platform to Oracle, since we are an Oracle shop. =  They have decided to make every column in every table a NOT NULL column. = They want to implement default values at the database level for every = column (' ', 0 and some low date for varchar2, number and date) and then = let the application validate and enforce significant data as required. I = am looking for opinions on the pros and cons of this type of approach, = both from a database and application point of view.=20

Thanks, Received on Fri Jan 05 2001 - 12:25:30 CST