Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

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Published Thursday, February 19, 2004 1:55 PM by RoyOsherove
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Thursday, February 19, 2004 2:26 AM by TrackBack

# My Worst Database Experience Ever

My Worst Database Experience Ever
Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:01 AM by vinnie tripodi

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

Why does everyone beat on us old Cobol guys? What does Cobol have to do with designing a relational database?
Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:32 AM by Anonymous

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

You can't export or imort databases easily with dts, when relations are defiened in the database. This gave me one hell of a bad time! The Database is the wrong place for documentation.
Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:34 AM by Scott Galloway

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

Yeah, a bit mean on the COBOL guys...also worth remembering that they're probably all loaded after the whole Y2K debacle - never hurts to have rich friends! Anyway, my next biggest DB issue (after yours which is THE biggy) is incorrect / poor use of indexes...grr...it doesn't matter how smart your query is or how good your relations are, if your indexes are crap / non-existent, the performance will suck!
Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:34 AM by t

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

reasons to have DB without relations :
1 . if you have a replications of youre DB sometimes you need to have DB without relations .
2. it works faster without relations
Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:40 AM by Yura2000

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

Hi Roy,
Ocasionally I am using not normalized DataBases .
And such cases are exactly when you have super cumbersome logic and huge amout of records.
From the second side you requested aftest perforamnce for reports, ubpdates etc. and hundreds hits in minute for your web application.
And more, I spoke about DB thet was normalized in the early life's stages.
Thursday, February 19, 2004 9:42 AM by Yura2000

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

//After code review :-))
Hi Roy,
Ocasionally I am using not normalized DataBases .
And such cases are exactly when you have super cumbersome logic and huge amout of records.
From the second side you requested for fastest perforamnce for reports, updates etc. and hundreds hits in minute for your web application.
And more, I spoke about DB that was normalized in the early life's stages.
Thursday, February 19, 2004 11:10 AM by Roy Osherove

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

Of course sometimes you HAVE to remove relations. I'm not talking about the exceptions to the rule here. I'm talking about people not implementing the rule when the can and SHOULD implement it.
Thursday, February 19, 2004 12:11 PM by Rich

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

This is a little confusing. If the database has a single table and the table has a single column, then it has a relation. It sounds like you are really talking about relational integrity, i.e., the relationships between relations (tables).
Friday, February 20, 2004 5:14 AM by Michael Dorfman

# re: Mortal sin: A non-relational relational database.

Roy *is* speaking about relational integrity, and a database without it isn't really a relational database. In order for a "single column table" to be a table (in a relational sense) the single-column has to be defined as a primary key, with a unique constraint. The fact that SQL Server allows you to do otherwise is the root of the problem. It's all too easy in SQL to create a "table" with no primary key, or omit a foreign key constraint, and before you know it you are writing funky business logic to enforce rules that should be in the database. Or, more likely, finding weird bugs because you forgot to write the funky business logic.
Friday, February 20, 2004 8:09 AM by TrackBack

# My personal DB hell