comment on

Hi Ovid

You don't give an example of the awful database design, but assuming its similar to some of my experiences I would offer these few words of caution;

Difficulties arising from ambiguities in the database design should not be underestimated. Columns (attributes) that are semantically overloaded or poorly defined will continue being problematic regardless of abstraction.

Lack of normalisation, and the accompanying risk of data corruption, is easy to overlook when building an object-relational mapping or a phrasebook. Can you afford to aim for 3NF? (Can you afford to not?)

And finally some rhetoric which may or may not be helpful; Poor foundations will sabotage anything built on top.

Cheers, and good luck!

In reply to Re: Creating a model of a bad database by EdwardG
in thread Creating a model of a bad database by Ovid

Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:
<code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>
Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.


P is for Practical
	PerlMonks