The surest way to database ruin is:

What about "Let the users on it"?

you forgot a few other ways to crash and burn....

- surrogate keys by rote
- using NOT NULL everywhere
- executing a query in a loop

oh, i could go on and on...

I'm a hardcore proponent of surrogate keys, backed up by alternate key definitions for the natural key, but we've been over that bridge before! I think you're willing to allow me to use surrogates, as long as I rigidly enforce the natural key(s) too.

Misuse of NOT NULL is definitely a path to database disaster, but I don't think I can change the poll once it is started. We'll have to live with the choices that I dreamed up on the spur of the moment, unless somebody wants to start a thread to "build a beter poll" on the road to database ruin... If they do, I'll cheerfully withdraw my poll in favor of a more robust one, with more than 30 seconds of design effort to plan it!

Inappropriate looping is a means to ruin an application in my opinion. I think that it really can't trash the database, although it can probably emphasize the design errors.

-PatP

Jeeze, I fingered that with a poll like this, we'd have the denizons of dbforums gang-piling all over trying to get their votes in on this one. I guess I'll have to scare up some better bait to get people to vote!

-PatP

It's in the wrong forum...

What about ... just ask us ... we will be glad to do it for you

I used to work with someone who would happily make changes to a working database, and release the new version without testing it with the words, "That should work."

Often this would be follwed a few days later with, "That should have worked - they're not using it properly".

Happy days.