In my experience, NULL has been used by inexperienced developers to great detriment to the stability of their projects.
Please note my use of the word "likely" and the definition of the given word. In a large portion of cases there is no reason that there would be a "missing" or "unknown" value. There are cases where it could be useful, but in the vast majority of cases it causes much more work than needed (constantly checking for a NULL value etc). It triples all boolean logic for instance - true, false, and null conditions. On 11/27/06, Jay Sprenkle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
On 11/27/06, Isaac Raway <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'd like to strongly second this. Avoid NULL columns, even at apparent cost. > Having a valid default value is always better. If a design appears to > require NULL values, then the design is likely critically flawed. Using NULLS is NOT a critical design flaw. NULL means something specific and if you use it correctly it works perfectly. NULL indicates when nothing has been entered into a field. Not entering anything, and entering spaces or a default value, are different. If you need that information then it's very useful. If you don't then don't use it by assigning default values. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-- Isaac Raway Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem. http://blueapples.org - blog http://stonenotes.com - personal knowledge management
