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richard102
Starting Member
25 Posts |
 Posted - 2014-04-23 : 18:23:13
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| Hi all, a developer wants me to separate out some columns into two new tables -say- widgets_in and widgets_out as part of a redesign. I notice the two new tables have identical columns, and feel it would be better to have just one new table -say- widgets_inout including a flag column to denote out-going-widgets.thanksrichard102 |
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tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess
38200 Posts |
Posted - 2014-04-23 : 18:56:25
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| What is the developer's reasoning?I would want one table with the flag column like you mentioned.Tara KizerSQL Server MVP since 2007http://weblogs.sqlteam.com/tarad/ |
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richard102
Starting Member
25 Posts |
Posted - 2014-04-24 : 02:09:56
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| Hiah Tara, I'm new at this software co (they don't have real-data, which makes me want to cry), but in the meeting they said something about allowing many-to-many relationships between moving widgets. My on-the-spot proposal to just add a groupid column to the current table was quickly shot-down (to avoid nulls when say 4 inputs are to be linked with 3 outputs, or something like that). Then later looking at the table, the columns 'objectidfrom', 'objectidto', 'lifetimefrom', 'lifetimeto' look like great candidates for separation fair-enough.thanksrichard102 |
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denis_the_thief
Aged Yak Warrior
596 Posts |
Posted - 2014-05-05 : 10:10:21
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| You're problem may be more of a political one than a technical one. Once I resorted to saying to a Developer "because it's against my Religion" as a reason for sticking to normalization when I was having difficulty convincing him. I think it seemed to work, so you could try that.From you first post, I would agree with you and Tara. Although I don't think it violates Normalization, but sounds like it plain violates good Database/system design. But in your second post, the situation is a little unclear, at least to me.You have to recognize, though, that you just started. Although you may have more Database knowledge you probably have less knowledge of the system as a whole compared to that Developer. Many companies are reluctant to change their ways just from what a new person says, even though that new person may be correct.There may be some merit to what that developer is suggesting but at least you could try pointing out the benefits of going with one table. |
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normalization