Steve Conklin (Developer@UltraDNT)
Developer at UltraDNT.com
Thu May 27 13:35:38 CDT 2004
Personally, I stick with 50 on all text fields because I'm admittedly lazy. if there's a spec for field called "notes", then I go to 255 or maybe memo. If I get a call/complaint, ever, I bump it to 255. Anything with 255 that gets a call, goes to memo. The hoops you went through here are not a fair comparison to just a quick visit to Access' table design. It is a 30 second change most of the time for the table design (forms and reports aside). I just don't see this as a big deal, there are thousands of things a "bad" developer might do that would irk me more than this. BUT ... Whatever happened to the WithEvents discussion(s) ... I was actually learning things from that, as opposed this non-stop debate over relatively inconsequential minutiae. This thread had devolved into a waste of bits and bandwidth. Steve -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of DWUTKA at marlow.com Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2004 12:25 PM To: accessd at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various I don't know about you Francisco, but I like to get things running the first time. When someone asks me to work on a system built by someone else, then they have problems due to the original developers design, I know that it wasn't my fault, but some customers may go 'It worked before, now you broke it'. Yes, I just had to increase a field size, which only took about an hour and a half to do. (Why? Because the original 'size limit' was set in Access. The system was then ported to SQL Server. The original size limit of 35 characters (for a field to describe the exact location where an accident occurred) was ported into SQL server also. The IT department at the company running this thing refused to make the change in field size (long story, not really the IT departments fault, they were banned from messing with the project, for a while). So I had a little web based 'interface' to the SQL Server. Unfortunately, it didn't allow for actual field 'changes'. I could 'add' and 'delete' fields. So I had to make a temp field, run an update query to transfer the data into the temp field. delete the old field, make a new field with same name, and longer field size, update the data back into the original field, and then delete the old field. With the amount of data involved, and the delays in doing it through the 'web interface', it took about an hour and a half (though I admit was fixing two fields, but it would have taken just about as long for just that one). So in the end, you're right, it was an easy fix, because I got $150 for fixing it. No sweat off of my back, because I got paid to fix it. However, an interesting twist to this incident, that $150 was out of pocket for the original developer, NOT the client. The client bought the system from the original developer. The original developer hired me to create an ASP interface for a portion of his system. I did that. The client paid for it, then paid for him to port it to SQL Server. I was paid to modify my system to pay for SQL Server. The system works, but they have issues that have cropped up due to severe design flaws in the original system. Since they have paid for the completely project, he has to get the system running. Anything where my code 'should' work, and isn't, I fix for free (so far, only have had a few issues with handling single and double quotes). Everything else is due to the original database design. I fixed the field size issue, because the original developer is not very adept at working with SQL server remotely. Now think about that, is setting a field size limit to something close to where you think your client won't exceed worth $150 a pop? Drew -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com]On Behalf Of Francisco H Tapia Sent: Wednesday, May 26, 2004 5:55 PM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] On DB Bloat, Bad DB Design, and various DWUTKA at marlow.com wrote On 5/26/2004 3:37 PM: >There ya go, throwing fuel on the fire! <evilgrin> > >Actually, it's kind of a battle over 'bad practice' again. JC and I >have both been burned (In my case several times, within just the past >few months) >by a previous developer setting some arbitrary field size limit. >However, the only issue we have heard so far with setting it to 255 was >Charlotte had >a Query too complex error, which is intriguing, to say the least. But >I haven't heard other incidents like that, so it may have been an >isolated incident. > > How were you burned? you just had to increase a field size, how difficult was that? -- -Francisco -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com -- _______________________________________________ AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com