[thelist] SQL query help

[Luther, Ron]

Hi Rudy,

I don't know ... I've gone 'round and 'round with a number of people on
this and I guess maybe I'm just not seeing the light.

I really think the *purpose* for the system needs to be taken into
consideration before you get into design theory. Here's what I mean - if
you're talking about an OLTP system recording zillions of sales or
trades or inventory movement transactions - then I'm with you 100% -
redundancy is a 'bad thing'.  

But that's not what all systems do ... I guess where I disagree is when
we start talking about 'ad-hoc' reporting systems - data mining
applications where I've got a corporate exec with a unique 'problem of
the day' - that needs to be solved by 3pm.  In that case ... I, for one,
will gladly trade redundancy for 'ease of use'.

{I used to have to extract information from Oracle *Application* (TM)
tables.  [Yes Virginia, Oracle sells packaged applications too!  I think
it's part of Larry's plan to guarantee full employment for Oracle
consultants!]  Wonderfully efficient stuff ... I don't think it had any
redundancies at all ... unfortunately, you had to link the sales order
table back into itself - at FIVE different connect points - in order to
extract detailed sales order data ... which kind of made 'on the fly'
queries a ridiculous exercise in futility. [Try keeping your field names
straight when you've got five references to the same table. Ugh!]}

I don't know - I guess I subscribe more to a "Perl" point of view:
efficiency means 'getting the job done - and getting it done fast' ...
and I guess I really think there are occasions where a "sloppier" db
design makes the *work* go faster.

Zat make any sense at all?


RonL.
(Gee - and next we can talk about whether to have half a dozen "generic"
tables drive all your reports ... or have a zillion "specialty" tables
unique to each report.  One is more 'productive' for minimizing
development time.  One is more 'productive' for minimizing end user
report latency.  When to tip the scale in which direction?)

-----Original Message-----
From: rudy [mailto:r937 at interlog.com]

i would go further and suggest using redundancy only as a last resort