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

Hi John

> I keep asking (and nobody is responding) - whose data is it?  Whose database
> is it.

In most cases, the client's.

> Who are YOU to TELL the client that 53 characters is all they need?

I'm the expert. Quite often the client doesn't know what he/she needs.
If there would be a good reason to limit a text field to 53 chars, I
would tell or simply apply it.
As some examples, ISO country codes are either two or three chars, BIC
(SWIFT) codes are 8 or 11 chars, and IBAN codes are, by definition,
max. 34 chars - anything above these numbers would represent an error
and would make no sense to store.

Here, no city name is longer than 20 chars and no street name is
longer than 34 chars. Thus 50 is a reasonable limit for domestic 
address lines which, by the way, is also what Access's table designer
suggests. 

/gustav