Re: quick FK question
- From: Robert Freeman <robertgfreeman@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: cary.millsap@xxxxxxxxxxxx, mwf@xxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 21 Dec 2009 08:22:40 -0800 (PST)
Sounds fun Cary.... Wish it were being web casted!
Robert G. Freeman
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________________________________
From: Cary Millsap <cary.millsap@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: mwf@xxxxxxxx
Cc: rgravens@xxxxxxxxx; gints.plivna@xxxxxxxxx; JSweetser@xxxxxxxx;
oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Mon, December 21, 2009 8:03:38 AM
Subject: Re: quick FK question
This isat the root of the Codd vs. Date debate summarized at
http://www.dbdebunk.com/page/page/1706814.htm.
I am eager to see Chris Date present on this near our office next month.
Enrollment is still open, and there's plenty of space available (wink):
http://method-r.com/education/107-cj-date-course
Cary Millsap
Method R Corporation
On Mon, Dec 21, 2009 at 8:36 AM, Mark W. Farnham <mwf@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>This is subject to testing and experimentation to see which way works better
>>with the current technology.
>
>>It does raise and interesting question: When faced with incomplete data in
>>columns that are not mere scalars but rather are either part of a key of the
>>current relation or to another relation, is it better to include the tuple
>>in your representation of the relation with some indication the tuple is
>>incomplete or is it better to relegate the incomplete tuple to a staging
>>location until its critical column values are known?
>
>>There is meaning added to the the database by having the constraint and a
>>value that declares "this is a provisional value because we don't know the
>>real value" as opposed to merely allowing the column to be null. When the
>>provisional value can be used to drive a process to identify quality
>>problems in the data without discarding the bits of the tuple that are known
>>some good can come out of it. In terms of total work that must be done in an
>>Oracle database to complete the data, this may be superior to having the
>>incomplete tuples in a separate table.
>
>>But you mentioned "warehouse," which to a certain extent implies the data is
>>in final form. Will the answers gotten from the warehouse be improved or
>>degraded from including the incomplete tuple? Is there a good general answer
>>to this question? (Am I mistaken or is this at root one of the bits Codd and
>>Date had a mild disagreement about?)
>
>>Ah, the quasi-religious war that can be waged over this one!
>
>>So, does your "data warehouse modeler" produce models that work well to
>>answer the questions put to it? Does this practice tend to make the models
>>more or less usable?
>
>>Regards,
>
>>mwf
>
>-----Original Message-----
>>From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>On Behalf Of Rumpi Gravenstein
>>Sent: Monday, December 21, 2009 8:01 AM
>>To: gints.plivna@xxxxxxxxx
>>Cc: JSweetser@xxxxxxxx; oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>Subject: Re: quick FK question
>
>><snip>
>>I've seen once from some duhvelopers - they created all FK columns NOT
>>NULL. Unfortunately of course there were cases with FK columns where
>>actual value could not be provided. So what did they do? An obvious
>>solution! ;) Added one row with id = -1 as a stub to all db tables.
>></snip>
>
>>Gints I wanted to follow-up on this statement as our warehouse data
>>modeler insists on doing this for all dimension joins claiming that
>>this is good warehouse design as it avoids having to worry about outer
>>joins. How would you respond?
>
>>--
>>Rumpi Gravenstein
>
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