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Do Reference Materials Provide Support for a Data Model
Today I wanted to come back to my main concern demonstrated in the EAV – Yes or No editorial this past Tuesday. Using EAVs is a trolling topic to get attention because everyone (who knows what they are) has an opinion. Depending on your experience, your opinion will differ.
But the central issue brought out in the conclusion of David’s post was that there are no well-known published patterns for the use of EAVs. I read from this that useful or proper data models will have a reference pattern for usage.
I can think of other data modeling techniques for which there are no reference patterns that have been useful over the years, yet must be used with discretion. In fact, I would contend the use of any data model has issues that must be understood in order to make the best design decision for the intended use of the database.
De-normalized data in the form of data marts is a very common data model for reporting systems. Often data marts contain data from multiple normalized tables so that they may be specialized for common reporting purposes. Many reporting systems and even some data warehousing benefits highly from data marts.
As I mentioned on Tuesday, type/subtype data models are extremely powerful and can save a lot of redundant work and maintenance in your database. This model is not much more sophisticated than 3rd Normal Form or Boyce/Codd normal form (BCNF). In fact, most database professionals tend to target BCNF as a starting point, moving to lessor or higher normalization depending on the requirements of the system.
My question to the community is, does the lack or the existence of reference material contribute to the usefulness of a data model? What do you think? Get into the conversation by sending your thoughts to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
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