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

I don't mean space/storage. You are not listening to me. What I'm saying is that there is no business rule telling you to set it to 255, you are picking it because that is a limit of access. That is all I'm saying. It makes no more sense to me to make it 255 characters (which really doesn't matter on storage) than to make it a sensible number based on some sort of logic (which you keep saying I don't do). How do you know how I make my decisions for field size? 

<< That would explain how you could have issues that I am not seeing.

I never said I was having any issues. I said that setting the field to 255 arbitrarily may cause an issue down the road. What issue, maybe report problems, I have no idea. At least I know what issues I may have if I set an address field to some size based on some to be determined method.

<< TEN YEARS, DOZENS OF DBS, ALL USING 255 BYTE FIELDS, NO ISSUES.

I've been designing Access DB's since version 1.0 but that alone doesn't make me right and neither do your 10 years of database design. I think that you are a wonderful developer (from what I've seen). This is supposed to be friendly discussion...not personal attacks. I'm not even saying that what you are doing is wrong. I'm just saying it doesn't make sense to me.

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:	Wednesday, May 26, 2004 7:43 AM
To:	Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject:	RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various

Scott,

There are no doubt databases where this is an issue but NOT in an access
database for crying out loud.  The max size it can EVER be is 2 GBytes.  Do
you know ANY computer out there that doesn't have 2Gbytes free?  ANY?  Your
MOM'S old Pentium 133 had 5g hard drives.  Assuming that this is going into
a company, $1000 will buy a BRAND NEW computer, with 120gb RAID1 (ENOUGH FOR
40 ACCESS DATABASES!!!!!!!!!) with a UPS to sit in the server room with
nothing but the ACCESS db.

I have been doing Access databases for 10 years now.  I have always just set
the size to 255.  I have tables with DOZENS of text fields of 255
characters.  I DO NOT SEE PROBLEMS WRITING THE DATA.  I do not see problems
with the database filling up because users are writing books in the address
fields.  If there were ANY validity to your "issue" I would at least see it
once or twice in 10 years, don't you think?

Perhaps you are not correctly normalizing your databases, using lookup
tables, with autonumber PKs for the lookup lists etc?  Allowing users to
write whatever they want in text fields when they should be using combos and
check boxes to enter correct data.  That would explain how you could have
issues that I am not seeing.

TEN YEARS, DOZENS OF DBS, ALL USING 255 BYTE FIELDS, NO ISSUES.  My users
aren't filling every 256 byte field to the last byte.  They aren't filling
ANY fields to the last byte.  They are entering what you would expect to
enter, names, addresses etc.  TEN YEARS, DOZENS OF DBS, ALL USING 255 BYTE
FIELDS, NO ISSUES.

This is absolutely a NON ISSUE that you are trying to make an issue because
you have no valid issue.

TEN YEARS, DOZENS OF DBS, ALL USING 255 BYTE FIELDS, NO ISSUES.

Harp all you want, it is just harping.

By the way, did I mention... TEN YEARS, DOZENS OF DBS, ALL USING 255 BYTE
FIELDS, NO ISSUES.

Now, how many storage / length problems have YOU encountered?

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com