Steve poses a good question. It's one that has exercised my mind from time to time. A purist (that's me) would argue GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) and say that...

I like this as a discussion topic. It's making me think. My natural inclination is: centralised and standards but I can see there is a point to decentralisation. It certainly...

Steve, Thanks for the pointer to Martin Fowler's piece. I enjoyed that. It's a really good summary of the arguments.

The contributions to this discussion have been thought-provoking too. For some...

I think Steve has a point here, but I think it also goes deeper, into the philosophy (if you want to call it that) of having a pre-defined "structure" or...

Hello Ron, I agree that SQL is pretty good in most cases. It is certainly better than some of the alternatives which relied on knowing how the physical data structures...

This is an unusual example of a common problem. People include attributes without necessarily thinking about what they mean. Unfortunately "Sex" or "Gender" is one of those things which get...

I agree with GPO, who asks "Question is why does this scenario play out over and over again?"

I think one of the reasons, which GPO touches on, is an accumulation...

I agree! Rules (or at least heuristics) are good, so long as the people using them understand why they are there. When they start to be enforced rigidly, especially by...

Thanks people. There are some thought-provoking ideas there. I'm going to update some of my "mental guidelines" as a result.

The main thing I am going to add to my thinking...

mister.magoo (2/2/2015)

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dmbreth (2/2/2015)

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I recently was asked to concert some Oracle data to a SQL Server database and was directed to change all "quantities" into floats. These quantities could be...

mister.magoo (1/31/2015)

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jarick 15608 (1/31/2015)

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The one I dont get is the use of float in a financial application. I just don't see the reason. Someone help me.

I've seen some...

I agree with the Gail's point. I describe myself as an analyst rather than a DBA or a developer and I would agree: Keep it Simple (S)! Certainly never try...

That was an interesting post and some thought-provoking comments.

Like a lot of you I view meetings as necessary but sometimes evil. 😉 I think the trick to reducing the...

I think Steve has made a really interesting observation. "Always on" is not necessarily a good idea. Software which really depends on communication is one thing, but creating such a...

I've been amused by some of the comments about dates. :-):-)

I like this too:

andrew gothard (6/26/2014)

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"I know - why not just put the entire address in one column, what could...