I'm surprised that nobody has suggested using XML instead of tables for mostly static data like countries, states, salutations, etc.
Phillip Senn said the following on 2/8/2006 9:19 AM: > 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" > -- Peter J. Farrell :: Maestro Publishing Member Team Mach-II :: Member Team Fusion http://blog.maestropublishing.com Create boilerplate beans and transfer objects for ColdFusion! Fire up a cup of Rooibos! http://rooibos.maestropublishing.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to cfcdev. To unsubscribe, send an email to [email protected] 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/[email protected]
