Re: looks like some web developers are getting back into 4GL environment...

On 11/18/05, ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net <ryan_gaffuri_at_comcast.net> wrote:

> your jumping to conclusions based on what some people say is the correct
> way to use it. You don't have to use it the way people who write articles
> say you should. They are not going to come to your house with a club and
> beat you if you design your database properly.
>

 But according to the guy who wrote it and is its chief advocate, you *explicitly
aren't supposed to design* your database properly.  *"We took a pretty radical stand: Stored procedures and all things that make your database clever are evil," Hansson said. "If you tell a lot of IT shops that, they'll be majorly offended, because that's just the way they do things." *
 No stored procedures, no integrity constraints, no triggers. It seems like that even designing relationally is up for grabs. Instead all that should be reinvented in the application code.

> What language you code in and what framework you use is independent of
> how you design. Good design is good design. The language or environment is
> the implementation. Java people aren't bad database people because of java.
> Its their own fault. Java has nothing to do with it.
>

 I'd argue that how you design is hugely influenced by what you design and the tools you use to do it. I'm a data bigot. That is I tend to believe that the data that your corporation uses is what has meaning and value. The application set that your corporation uses is a set of tools that act on that information to automate or improve particular business processes that are subject to change over time. Frequently new applications merely represent or reanalyze the same data again. For example over the last 5 years or so most data has been made available over the web to other humans. It seems likely to me that over the next 5 years or so much the same data will be made available over the web to other computer systems. The data however will likely be much the same. Amazon will still sell at retail, Boeing will still make planes, the banks will still run financial accounts for their customers and so on. Now making those business transactions available as web services (or whatever) to other applications will likely require new applications it may not require much new database design.

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Niall Litchfield
Oracle DBA
http://www.niall.litchfield.dial.pipex.com

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