I agree with Joe's comments.  It gets ugly quick once the requirements go beyond simple name-value pairs and you have to add additional fields to the control table.  And like Joe also said, the emergence of tools like Reactor, Arf!, ColdSpring, etc make it very simple to build the CRUD facilities for managing the multiple small tables.
 
Also, foreign key relationships (to me at least) make more sense when you're joining to tables with a clearly defined purpose.

 
On 2/8/06, Phillip Senn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I consider this to be a classic question.

Q: Should I have:
1. A bunch a little bitty lookup tables (averaging 2-10 dropdown values), or

2. One big Control table that has a LookupType field?

The Argument for #2 is there are fewer tables in SQL Server, ergo a lot less
code needed form maintenance.

The Argument for #1 is that if you have one large Control table, then you
are in effect writing your own administrative facility, which is the whole
purpose of Enterprise Manager/Query Analyzer.

I pose this question to the group because to me, the structure of the tables
probably maps directly to the object model.  After all, the purpose of the
database is to simply provide persistence for the objects, no?

So which do you prefer:

1. SELECT * FROM TableA
  SELECT * FROM TableB
  SELECT * FROM TableC
2. SELECT * FROM Control WHERE LookupType="TableA"
  SELECT * FROM Control WHERE LookupType="TableB"
  SELECT * FROM Control WHERE LookupType="TableC"




----------------------------------------------------------
You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to cfcdev@cfczone.org with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email.

CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting ( www.cfxhosting.com).

An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/cfcdev@cfczone.org



----------------------------------------------------------
You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to cfcdev@cfczone.org with the words 'unsubscribe cfcdev' as the subject of the email.

CFCDev is run by CFCZone (www.cfczone.org) and supported by CFXHosting (www.cfxhosting.com).

An archive of the CFCDev list is available at www.mail-archive.com/cfcdev@cfczone.org

Reply via email to