My apologies. I should have said Business Basic. We were taught bad database design skills. Luckily for me, I had other RDBMS experience before I started. I did have many problems with RPG programmers who designed poor tables in a previous job.
Russel Madere Webmaster 504.832.9835 SunShine Pages by EATEL www.sunshinepages.com -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 9:00 AM To: CF-Talk Subject: Re: RE: Primary Key Justification I'm not sure I completely agree with that statement about RPG programmers - I began my career doing Relational Database design and programming for OS400 using RPG. Their design and development (if done right) should be completely sound, maybe more so than what's produced by others. One thing you've got to keep in mind is that the old school RPG developers dealt with machines that had serious memory limitations... and so OS400 also had these limitations. For example, variable names couldn't exceed 6 characters... allowing more characters meant using up extra memory. The same line of thought applies to table, procedure, and column names as well. That said, anyone with a lot of experience in RPG needs to do a little reading and get with the times if they want to do database design using modern hardware and/or modern software... and I'd encourage them to do so. Developers that have never worked within the limitations that older systems used to apply don't really appreciate how easy they've got it ;) ~Simon > > Since I have a little experience with older (as in early 90s) AS400 and > Business Basic development, I can attest to the fact that the tables are > done differently. I have had to use an employee table that required a > primary key based upon 3 fields out of nine. I defined a new primary > key for my relational work. > > Older (see above) AS400 and RPG developers do not make good relational > database designers in general. The relational model sometimes just is > beyond their comprehension. > > Remind this developer that a web application has less horsepower than a > comparable AS400 application. Because of that the database needs a > single field primary key. > > Russel Madere > Webmaster > 504.832.9835 > SunShine Pages by EATEL > www.sunshinepages.com > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Dawson, Michael [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Tuesday, November 09, 2004 8:01 AM > To: CF-Talk > Subject: Primary Key Justification > > I'm well aware of the need for a primary key, in addition to a sound > table design, however, I'd like someone else to "word" a response for > me. > > A co-worker built a data file (a data table on an AS400) with six > fields. The only unique "key" of the record is the entire record, > itself. The combination of all six fields must be used to identify the > exact record. > > "This is how it's done," is the reply I get. (I've been building > web-based apps using relational DBs for 8 years. I have never used an > entire record as the primary key.) > > I'm not passing an entire record through a URL or in hidden form fields. > Imagine the nightmare of maintaining this application... > > A discussion of the existence of Oracle's sequences and SQL's identity > fields did little to sway this person's opinion. This person's entire > development background is AS400 with a history of bad database design. > > Now, I'm creating the table myself to do it right. ;-) > > Any thoughts? > > Thanks > M!ke > > > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Special thanks to the CF Community Suite Gold Sponsor - CFHosting.net http://www.cfhosting.net Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:4:183851 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/4 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:4 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
