[AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various

Jim Lawrence (AccessD) accessd at shaw.ca
Fri May 21 20:12:39 CDT 2004


Bleeding edge or old antique...the only way to make money programming.

Jim

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Andy Lacey
Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 11:03 AM
To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
Subject: RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various


>> a primitive spreadsheet program which ran on an IBM 370
Wow that takes me back. I designed and co-wrote one of those,
SomethingOrOtherCalc it was called - originally. (I don't mean that
literally I just can't recall - you get the picture.) Was going to make my
fortune but unfortunately these things called IBM PC's came along and
somewhat destroyed the market. That's why I'm scratching a living with
Access. Aah well.

-- Andy Lacey
http://www.minstersystems.co.uk 



> -----Original Message-----
> From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com 
> [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Hale, Jim
> Sent: 21 May 2004 18:41
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various
> 
> 
> Charlotte,
> I guess we all have our own prejudices based on our unique 
> experiences but I had to grin at your "rant" because I had 
> almost a mirror image experience. As it happens, I joined a 
> major bank holding Co approx 30 years ago with a newly minted 
> MBA, and the first major dragon I had to slay was designing, 
> programming and implementing a financial reporting and 
> planning system. This task fell to me because the IT dept was 
> incapable of making it happen with the personnel and tools at 
> their disposal and in any case was backlogged 2 years with 
> requests. My recollection of this pre-PC period was a lot of 
> IT shops were swamped because COBOL and FORTRAN were about 
> it. I was able to succeed with a primitive spreadsheet 
> program which ran on an IBM 370, a lot of late nights and a 
> TSO partition (remember those?).  I was dangerous with JCL 
> because the system at the time was wide open, but that is 
> another story :-). BTW of the MBAs at the time who worked 
> with and for me, one started a successful NYSE listed 
> company, several have risen to the top of their companies, a 
> couple were indeed congenital idiots and one (Jeff Skilling) 
> was a crook.
> 
> Regards,
> Jim Hale
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Charlotte Foust [mailto:cfoust at infostatsystems.com]
> Sent: Friday, May 21, 2004 10:09 AM
> To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
> Subject: RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various
> 
> 
> Arthur,
> 
> Certification isn't the answer.  About 30 years ago all the 
> major banks decided that they absolutely had to have MBAs in 
> their management structure because these guys must know what 
> they were doing.  So they brought in a bunch of whiz kids who 
> lasted a year or two before their employers got wise to the 
> fact that getting a degree didn't mean you knew how to do 
> anything except take tests and defend a thesis in an academic setting.
> 
> Programming is something of an art, or at the least, a craft, 
> and it takes time and practice to perfect it.  Most of the 
> bad stuff you see is because Access has always been marketed 
> as an end user tool, so everyone who can use a wizard thinks 
> of themselves as a developer.  I once worked on overhauling 
> an Access project that a major company had paid $250,000 to a 
> "developer" to write.  I told them I would have been happy to 
> give them a program that didn't work for a tenth of that! 
> <VBG>  The guy
> *may* have know VB, given the way some of it was written, but 
> he knew sweet damn all about Access/Jet and SQL.
> 
> Charlotte Foust
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Arthur Fuller [mailto:artful at rogers.com] 
> Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 4:32 PM
> To: 'Access Developers discussion and problem solving'
> Subject: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various
> 
> 
> Just a note on this bloat subject. I acquired a new client 
> recently, whose DB was 220 MB. They burned me a CD containing 
> same last weekend, so I could work on it while they were 
> closed. Dumbass previous developer hadn't even split it into 
> FE-BE! Everyone was loading the same instance of the whole 
> thing across the net!
> 
> They had a problem which I fixed. I estimated a day but once 
> I got into it, 3 days elapsed. I split the difference and 
> billed for 2 days.
> 
> Upon inspection of said database, I discovered some 
> incredible and bizarre anomalies/stupidities. Several tables 
> of critical importance had no PKs and no FK indexes! Unbelievable!
> 
> Anyway... I split the datbase, then made some mods to the BE 
> which in theory ought to have almost doubled it (i.e. I made 
> copies of every transaction table, but not the static lookup 
> tables). Then I ran compact/repair, and the db came down to 
> (gasp) 40 MB. This includes the doubled tables and the new PK 
> and FK indexes that I added. From 200+ MB to 40 MB -- and 
> this with doubled transaction tables. Once we get the s**t 
> sorted out, I expect that it will come down to 25 MB.
> 
> I have never programmed in an automatic compact/repair before 
> -- I suppose because I tend to be available and do it as a 
> matter of course. But this app has caused me to rethink that.
> 
> More seriously, this app has caused me to rethink the virtues 
> of certification. No BE! No PKs! No FK indexes! No wonder the 
> bloddy app was slow with only 20 users on a net!
> 
> The up side is, it's really easy to look good in a situation 
> like this. The performance gains were spectacular. I got 
> high-fives from all directions :)
> 
> This is a strange business :)
> 
> Arthur
> 
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