Re: Web dev, DB and "proper db design".

On Jul 4, 2013, at 8:02 AM, Jim Giner <jim.giner@albanyhandball.com> wrote: > On 7/4/2013 6:42 AM, Richard Quadling wrote: >> Hi. >> >> I've just had a conversation regarding DB, foreign keys and their benefits. >> >> I was told "I've never worked on a web application where foreign keys were >> used in the database". >> >> As someone who has spent 25 years working on accounting/epos systems on MS >> SQL Server (yep, windows) and now in a web environment and hearing the >> above, ... well, ... slightly concerned. >> >> So, in the biggest broadest terms, what do you lot do? >> >> DBs with no foreign keys (constrainted or not). >> ORM builders with manual definition of relationships between the tables. >> Inline SQL where you have to just remember all the relationships. >> Views for simple lookups? How do you handle updatable views (does mysql >> support them?) >> etc. >> >> Is there a difference in those in 'startups' and web only situations, or >> those doing more traditional development (split that as you like - I'm just >> trying to get an understanding and not go off on one!). >> >> No definitive answers, and I hope I get some wide experiences here. >> >> Thanks for looking. >> >> Richard. >> > I"m going to guess that your source of such drivel never learned about such things. > Probably thinks that a 'key' has to be defined as such in the db, whereas we know what a > FK really is. > > Don't worry. As a former big iron guy and then a c/s guy and now a (new) web guy, things > haven't changed. > > -- > PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) > To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php > So, like Jim, I'm just going to speculate your correspondent has never actually designed anything very interesting. I can't really imagine how one does not use foreign keys, unless one does the entire relationship mapping between tables in the source… what a waste that would be.