How to name your database tables



  • I recently stumbled upon some very interesting database tables in an application used in nursing homes:



    The names are obviously in Dutch. Roughly translated: arf_GIP_Complete_NoneOneMultipleThemost_D, arf_GIP_Complete_NoneSomeMostAll_D, arf_GIP_Complete_MostofthetimenotSometimesMostofthetimeAllways_D, arf_GIP_Complete_NeverAlmostneverRegularlyMostofthetime_A, etc.

    And all those tables have the same layout:







    As you can see, the values in the Omschrijving field (description) are the ones in the table names. I guess they are used as the four possible answers to questions like "Do you feel lonely sometimes?" and "How many times a week do you have visitors?". But what if we want to add an extra possible answer to a question? Or what if we decide that none of the existing combinations can be used for a new question we added?

    This is just so wrong!



  • How f*cked up is that.... The DBA probably missed the lecture "Normalization" and "Database design for n00bz"



  • *agape*



  • HOLY F'IN HELL! Damn.. even when I didn't know much about databases (years ago), at least I had the common sense to figure out how to normalize things!

    cries knowing that the person probably makes more than me



  • ... wow. That's spectacular.



  • TDWTF is getting popular at that dutch forum, last week I saw pnieuwkamp too :P

     Good job to crosspost it to TDWTF, this gem deserves it
     



  • @mbvlist said:

    TDWTF is getting popular at that dutch forum

    And for good reasons. :P

    So, I don't suppose anyone got their hands on the database diagram for this monstrosity?
    I'd like to see it, and then vomit.



  • @mbvlist said:

    TDWTF is getting popular at that dutch forum, last week I saw pnieuwkamp too :P

     Good job to crosspost it to TDWTF, this gem deserves it
     

     

    Check! :Y) 



  • We've clearly finally transcended from databases to [b]dada-bases[/b] here...

    database structure that gets as denormalised as possible. =)


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