[AccessD] Why Change Field Size/was Change Field Size

I do go on, and I'll keep going on. ;-}  If you don't know what the
field will be used for, why include it at all?  Yes, fields like address
may very well need to be 255 because they *are* a variable length.  You
know perfectly well that I was talking about simply defaulting all
fields to 255, not about allowing specific fields to be that length for
a purpose.  

I'm not the only one who does go on ....

Charlotte Foust


-----Original Message-----
From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com
[mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of William
Hindman
Sent: Monday, December 05, 2005 11:36 AM
To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving
Subject: Re: [AccessD] Why Change Field Size/was Change Field Size


"that it's sloppy programming and suggests that you haven't really
thought out the design of the table." Charlotte

...lol ...how you do go on! ...if I'm absolutely certain of the field's 
content then I'll size it appropriately and validate the data ...and my 
table design tends toward a high degree of normalization so that I'm not

overly concerned about record size, although it is a legitmate
consideration 
...but, and this is where we may differ, if I have name, address, et al
type 
fields where the data length is unknown, I prefer to default them to 255

rather than establishing artificial limitations for the very reason that

Rocky is running into ...if the guesstimate turns out to be wrong it can
be 
a rpita to fix once in distribution.

...the only problem I've seen so far is the client using tabs within the

field and I now routinely prevent that.

Willam
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