I was interested in what types of database systems you guys build for a living. Do you spend all day designing enterprise level databases or creating application databases or are you all just frustrated DBAs

Perhaps you could describe an interesting one you've designed and built at work but remember to say why it was interesting I think we should exclude systems you've simply inherited or home projects.

I thought it might make a good read.

Mike

I wonder, Mike, do you have any interesting designs of your own in mind?

Mine are boring - inflexible & old fashioned 3NF things. TBH most of my work is physical development & DBA - full lifecycle and as such I don't get to architect that many systems.

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

I'm sure 3NF and interesting aren't exclusive

Mike

I designed the database for Ohio's Amber Alert program (Oracle, unfortunately). In addition to automatically sending out faxes, phone messages, and e-mails when a child is abducted, the database application provides this public interface: http://www.mcc.ag.state.oh.us/P1.aspx

That was very depressing to look through (I've got 2 kids) but what made the database design interesting?

Mike

What made the design interesting? Hmm.....
Well, the client requested that each missing child be associated with an easily remembered six character code based upon the child's name. So I wrote an algorithm for generating this as an abbreviated combination of first name and last name that had not been previously used on other cases.
Well, it occurred to me that some of these abbreviated name concatenations could potentially result in rude or obscene words embedded in the case's code. So I added a feature to eliminate any code containing an obscenity. This meant I needed to include a table of obscenities in the database, and that I had to populate this table. I ended up spending half a day searching the internet for every ethnic slur, obscenity, or sexually explicit word that I could find. At the conclusion of this, I was pretty sure my employer was not surreptitiously monitoring my internet usage.

Perhaps as a public service to everyone who reads these forums we should provide a page full of obsceneties

Mike

Here's a start:

• ****
• ****
• ****
• *******
• ****
• ****
• ******

That's a warning young man - any more smut like that you'll be kicking your heels for a week.

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

Doing what with my heels?

@#!? * you!
















*love

I take it either everyone's either shy, works on really dull designs or are just frustrated DBA's. The best contribution so far seems to consist of two tables - one containing missing entities and the other obscenities

I can only assume the rest of you get your ideas from books you've read rather than through the actual experince of designing databases. It makes me smile to think I took your critisms of my own designs seriously.

Forgive me for laughing

MBK

Ah - so you are a troll afterall - and after I defended you too. Well goodbye Mike - keep up with the imaginative designs.

pootle flump ur codings are working excelent.

Nooooo!
I wrote a really long reply and accidently shut the wrong tab :'(

EDIT: I'll try remember to re-write one soon

Mike, I've implemented every database design you have. The difference is, I've only implemented the bad ones once.

I implemented an OTLT twice before... I will never do that again!



...Oh come on!
...I was young and foolish at the time



...wait...