TOP (10) Worst Things to Do in a Database
The top ten list is finally here. Thanks to all your votes, (I know only three votes was hard), I have the final tally.
Our top 10 list is:
| Count Down | Database Actions to Avoid | Individual Votes |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | Compensating for Bad Schema | 19 |
| 9 | Poor Clustered and Non Clustered Indexes | 19 |
| 8 | No Database Documentation | 22 |
| 7 | SELECT * | 22 |
| 6 | Over Normalizing | 22 |
| 5 | Not Implementing Security, ie. Using Administrative Credentials | 26 |
| 4 | No Testing for Procedures, Triggers, Functions, etc. | 27 |
| 3 | No PrimaryKey or Foreign Key Indexes | 30 |
| 2 | Embedded SQL In Applications without Parameters | 32 |
| 1 | Not Enforcing Referential Integrity through Foreign Keys | 36 |
Here is a chart with the percentage of the votes for each item, out of all votes. The 35% represents the votes for other items that did not make the top ten list.
Thanks for all your participation. By request we’ll be having another survey for a top ten list of database operations "Bad Practices." We already have plenty of items that were cut from this list. Feel free to send in your pet "Bad Practices" to include in the survey.
Reader Comments
Shannon writes:
Saw it said on this list many years ago…
Normalize till it hurts, denormalize till it works… think that is the rule of thumb to go by
Claude Writes:
Putting business logic in stored procedures is a big pet peeve of mine. I am recently worked on a project where 90+ percent of the business logic was in stored procedures. Performance on the SQL Server was poor because all processes ran as stored procedures. Business logic belongs in the application that is consuming the data, not in the database. It is very rare to find a situation where an application doesn’t have the tools needed to perform the needed work. I do find in many cases that imagination is required to solve a particular need and to keep the business logic together, in the application. In the end though, you have a much easier system to support.
That wraps it up for today. Please send your comments and experiences to include in our newsletter to btaylor@sswug.org.
Cheers,
Ben
$$SWYNK$$
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