Thursday, March 12, 2009

Ab-normalization at Experts Exchange - Part 1

I'm always disappointed when beginners are pointed the wrong way.

The first glance at a table design like:

Table A - ID, LAstname, First Name, Year
Table B - ID, LAst Name, First Name, Year, accepted status

Triggers for me the question "Why two tables with almost identical fields?"

But as the beginner asks for how to delete rows in both tables when the [accepted status] holds a certain value, he's helped by an "expert" without even asking for the reason of this "design". Even the possibility of a Cascade Delete isn't mentioned...

It's obvious that this beginner should start with redesigning his database structure and should be pointed to an article about database normalization. Having this "process driven table design" will cause a lot of additional questions and coding, thus generating more "expert points" for this "would be expert". So it's obvious that it's not in the interest of this "expert" to point this beginner in the right direction and this (paying) experts exchange member is fooled by this "expert" as he thinks his problem is solved, while it just has started.

This bad service to a paying experts exchange "premium" member is even more embarrassing when you know that this "would be expert" even proudly states in his profile that he's an MVP....

Nic;o)
Still proud to be suspended from this "quality site" where wannabee experts rule and "quality" is just another word from the dictionary.
(The question can be found at: http://www.experts-exchange.com/Q_23762363.html and for those without member access a copy can be found at: http://www.altict.nl/Q_23762363.html )

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