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

Scott, I am not being ridiculous nor taking it personally.  I do everything
I do for a reason.  I question everything.  If I am told to make a field 20
characters I want to know why.  If I am told not to run my tires under 28
lbs I want to know why.  There are reasons for rules, and it is important to
understand WHY the rule exists.

You cannot make intelligent decisions on when a rule can safely be broken or
ignored if you don't understand the reason it exists to begin with.  I see
no reason for arbitrarily limiting my users text fields, and you can't tell
me that "I limit the address field to 25 characters" isn't arbitrary, it
absolutely is.  Pick a number out of thin air and that's what is being used.

It simply isn't my business, it is their business.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com

-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Scott Marcus
Sent: Tuesday, May 25, 2004 12:07 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various


Now you are being ridiculous. These are just examples. I think you would
rarely run into and address line greater than 50, but that's not the point.

There are things like the backend up grader to do these jobs for you. Don't
take it personal, I just find this an interesting and entertaining topic.

Scott Marcus
TSS Technologies, Inc.
marcus at tsstech.com
(513) 772-7000

 -----Original Message-----
From: 	accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]  On Behalf Of John W. Colby
Sent:	Tuesday, May 25, 2004 11:55 AM
To:	Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject:	RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various

Scott, you apparently have the benefit of unlimited freedom in your
database, sitting on site all day just waiting for your users to ask you to
expand a field.  I have NO client closer than 45 miles from my office.  Some
are in other states.  Of course I'll just jump on a plane and go do that.
Or walk the client through doing it.  In any case, boot all the users while
I do it.  And of course they can't enter the data until I do.  Hmmmm....
sounds like a curious definition of customer service.  Why do I care if they
enter 50 characters in the address2 field?  If that is what the address is,
then they need to be able to enter that.  The chance that it will be > 255
is so small that it isn't worth discussing so why are discussing it?  The
chances that it will be bigger than 25 are pretty good.

My job is to design a database that requires as little intervention on my
part as they can get away with.  I charge them by the hour to increase the
size of the field.

Come to think of it, I suppose I should just start with all fields at 10
characters and let the money pour in as I go back time and again to
"increase the field size".  Sounds rather silly when stated that way doesn't
it?

And what is the benefit?  What have you gained? (other than LOTS of extra
money increasing field sizes)

The person also mentioned that if you are allowing your users to directly
enter two digit state codes you have bigger problems than field lengths.

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com