I am not Dave, but my company does a lot of work for the government and we are always running into this scenario:
The client decided they needed a database back in '84, so "Joe" in the phonics department (or whatever) picked up a book on Dbase 3 and wrote one. The original had 3 tables with about 40 records in each. Somewhere along the line, they moved to Foxpro, then to Informix (or SQL Server or Sybase or who knows) They now have 172 tables. The biggest has 622,000 records. Normalization? Documentation? They live, as you might imagine, in abject terror, and, of course, They need to be able to access the data in its current form so it will work with the 300 or so reports that some consultant wrote in RR ReportWriter. So, having learned many lessons, we insist (we can do this) that they allow us to put the data in a reliable structure. Then we create queries to make everything look the funky way that they like it. The bottom line is that, as an insider, you may not have the clout to pull this off by fiat, but once in a great while the voice of reason can be heard over the din of the mob. At 05:42 PM 3/29/2002 -0600, you wrote: >Dave, > I have seen some of your other comments and I think I get more >impressed with your thinking everytime you make a comment. I too believe in >Data normalization. One of the problems that I am running into now is that >on the project I am on the data is denormalized and the client (NASA) wants >to keep using the existing database with existing data. I am making some >major changes that will help but not fix the problem. If they want even more >functionality than they have now it will be almost impossible with database >built the way it is. The worst is the implied foreign key.. > >Steven Lancaster >Barrios Technology >NASA/JSC >281-244-2444 (voice) >[EMAIL PROTECTED] ______________________________________________________________________ Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com FAQ: http://www.thenetprofits.co.uk/coldfusion/faq Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
