[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

you're boring.  again in your circles for nothing. I'm done with you.  you just don't read.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

"why start late when one can start early, right?" -- because it costs to start early, and you may never need to go all the way.

 

"we do not have a choice" -- we do.  we can choose not to go relational, or we can choose to build our own.  I do that.

 

"Since MySQL (and most DBMSes) are labeled as relational databases then it follows that they are based on relational theory. Thus, we have no choice but to know the theory/science behind such technology." -- that doesn't follow.  just because it's named, doesn't mean we need to care.  And it can be named after a goal that wasn't achieved, or after a plan that wasn't accomplished, or even after something that it isn't.  it's just a name.

 

"they have first hand experience with problems that are very practical and real." -- most theory-driven people have been taught by people with first hand experience.  most theory-driven people have nothing but other people's stories.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

(this is good now)

 

but I'm not saying that the strength of the hammer is based on its size.  I just grabbed another hammer.  It could have been a smaller one.  BUt I originally chose the smaller one because it was easier to swing -- I'm a wimp.  When it didn't work, I moved to the next easiest option.  You'll recall that I started with my own shoe, so I wouldn't need to go and find the tool box.

 

But I do agree with you (wow) that had I considered the hammer's size, and intentionally chose a bigger and "therefore" more suitable hammer, that we'd be in agreement regarding a database.  But I didn't consider the hammer's size.

 

Instead, I just went for random arbitrary choice.  And I think most people do in most situations.  In fact, I think everyone does in every situation when it comes to problems with what they believe to be not the core thing that they are doing.  So a painter would choose the correct paint brush using theory, but someone using a paint brush as a door-stop would not care which paint brush they used -- even as it pertains to being a door stop.  They'd just grab any brush and hope it worked.

 

So when a web-site programmer grabs a database to house 10 kilobytes of data, he really doesn't care about the database in any real way -- it's all about the html to him -- so he doesn't do any theory effort at all.  When he later starts storing thousands of records, then that becomes the real job, and theory starts to be beneficial.  And when it grows further, then theory is required. 

 

That's the road that I took with my business.  And it actually allowed me to get really creative and very innovative quite early-on, because I didn't get trapped by common mistakes just because they were common, nor by techniques that weren't known to be mistakes for another couple of years.  I wasn't trapped in the same box as everyone else.  It opened many doors for me.  I also learned exactly which elements of the theory applied to precisely which problems I was having as I resolved them -- something that most theory-driven people never learn, because they never get to have those problems so close to them.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

Dude, you're not listening at all.  He's not using arithmetic at all.  His house fell apart.  No axioms.  Totally obvious.  The house fell. 

 

Your initial point is invalid, therefore your entire follow-up is meaningless.  You can't argue by saying "you cannot deny that".  That just means that you cannot consider anything.  That makes you ignorant in the true meaning of the word -- you're ignoring everyone else.

 

You've managed to say absolutely nothing, nor to give any counter examples to those given.  That makes all of your posts useless to readers. 

 

So here's your last chance.

 

I place a nail in some wood.  I grab by shoe.  I hit the nail with my shoe.  Nothing happens.  I get a hammer.  I swing my hammer at a nail.  I hit the nail on the head.  The hammer breaks.  I blame the hammer.  I grab a second hammer.  I swing the hammer.  The hammer breaks.  I grab a third hammer.  I swing the hammer.  The hammer works.  The nail is embedded in the wood.  I move on with my life.

 

Absolutely zero effort was spent discerning why my shoe didn't work, nor why the first two hammers broke.  It could have been anything.  The hammers could have been defective.  I may have been swinging them incorrectly.  It didn't matter.  I didn't understand anything about hammers, nor about shoes, nor about nails, nor about the strength of the wood.  I just grabbed the next object in line and used it.  Eventually, I won the day.

 

Grabbing a bigger hammer is the a valid technique.  And it requires zero theory of any kind.

 

So, now it's your turn.  Why don't you discuss my hammer story.  Directly, not vaguely, and not dimissingly.  Because it's a real story.  And it occured last weekend.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

And yet, you duplicated it for absolutely no apparent reason.  Like I said, you can't read, and you're incapable of understanding what's presented to you.  But it's evident that you've never actually been responsible for someone else's project for conception through completion and further through maintenance and continuation.  So it's not suprising that you've got no practical application logic to your reasoning. 

 

It also makes sense that the only comments you can make are vague and sweeping rejections of entire posts.  Like I said, Aliza is about as coherent as you are.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

Of course I, and any sane person can, and has done so.  I don't need to know that the calculator is broken, miscoded, or defective.  I only need to know that the tool I used to accomplish a job produced a poor-quality result.  The job didn't get done. That's enough for me to blame all of my tools and to go buy new tools.

 

If the house collapses because the nails degraded, I don't need to know if they rusted, crumbled, corroded, or broke.  I just need to not use those nails again.

 

This is what I mean when I say that you don't think things through.  I don't need to know that 2+2 != 5.  I just need to know that my wallet is empty, or that the house crumbled.  I need to know that using my tool was a bad idea, and then get a different tool next time.  The second calculator won't likely fail.

 

And if it does, then I'll very quickly say that calculators aren't proper tools, and I'll go back to my prior way of doing things.

 

Welcome to the computer age.  A great many people abandonned it.  That's why.

 

But again, you don't follow through on completely thoughts.

 

And, by the way, I never called you a name.  I called you a bot.  That's an accusation, not a name.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

See the loop that you're in?  All because you don't understand the words "results" and "obvious".

 

You don't put any effort into understanding what you're reading.  And hence, you're useless in a conversation.  You've just repeated one of your former posts.

 

You're a bot.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

Like I said, if you can't discerne knowlege from an argument, then you're done.  You've given up long ago.  If all you see is absurdity, then you're so far away from seeing what's there, that no one can show it to you; and you'll never see it.  Pittiful really.  Erline tables are used every day, every second, in hundreds of industries.  And you're dismissing it as absurd. 

 

You've got absolutely zero to contribute beyond your very first comment -- because you haven't gained any knowledge nor understanding nor even perspective of the other arguments in the discussion.  So you're nothing more than a one-trick pony, reiterating the same comment 161 times.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

Your not following up on arguments made by fellow commenters is the problem.  Such things are only irrelevant to you because you never explored them enough to understand them.  If you don't understand the arguments being made against you, and you don't take the time to learn, then you're done; plain and simple. 

 

And that, is most definitely your fault.  You are incapable of learning.

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I did.  with all of your theory, you don't know what erline tables are, and you don't know what clairvoyant means.

 

So your way of doing things has failed you in these ways.  Hence, your "theory" doesn't work at all.

 

We can't have a fruitful discussion, because you lack the practical ability to apply yourself to said conversation in any useful way..

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Umm, learn the language.  I am most definitely "clairvoyant".  Can't you see what the word actually means?  It's not hard.

 

Welcome to your theory.  Have you "discovered" erline tables yet?  Or are you still working on theorizing how one would build a search engine that could find terms by phoenetic spelling? 

 

You theory doesn't work.  At all.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

You can say "maybe" all you like.  But in this case, it's a definite "no".  We're not talking about "in the first place".  We're talking about now.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

Because there is additional effort to using theory in building websites, and I'm telling you that additional effort isn't beneficial enough to anyone when compared to the time, effort, and resources required to do so.  That's why.  For every added effort, there is a cost, and there is a benefit. 

 

Here's your theory for you.  If you benefits don't out-weigh the costs, you shouldn't expend the efforts. 

 

See, now that's theory.  And after 15+ years of building web-sites, I can tell you quite expertly that it's not worth even considering theory when

building web-sites.  The following reasons are first to come to mind. 

 

- web-sites are virtual, and central, so they can be changed/fixed/corrected/adjusted at any time.  so mistakes aren't permanent.

 

- new technologies appear frequently, so old code gets replaced anyway, even if it was "right" when it was written.

 

- it's a very new industry of 20 years old, the modern web is only 10 years old.  most of the theories aren't established/perfected/proven.

 

- the market/industry/consumer-base/client-base shifts so radically that needs and requirements and ratios change sporadically with each project. so any attempt to create an equivalency across projects is futile, or just plain incorrect.

 

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

My not helping you find something, is not misinformation.

 

And you have no evidence to the contrary, because you have no evidence at all.  Google is not all knowing, and you don't know how to search for something that you can't spell.  Sounds like a deficiency on your part.

 

I'm not interested in teach ing.  I'm not a teacher.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

Wow, so I give you the phoenetic spelling spelling of a term, and you aren't willing to go beyond Google.  Nice.

 

You see, I don't need to give a reference when I discuss something that's been around for 100 years, and used in probably 40% of business industries.  You're asking me to teach you about them, but you aren't willing to do the first step to figure out what they are.

 

But you did that quoting thing again.  If you can't learn that, then I don't see how you can learn the other.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

Thank you.  You just learned, because I told you not to do something, and then you didn't do it.  I had to say it twice, but I don't think I gave you any theory.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

You just did it again.

[MySQL Extra Tables vs Type Field]

@jimmy: So basically if tables have a large amount of similar fields they should be grouped together and have tables that contain extra details for each type? Got it.

 

I wouldn't say it like that.  when you say "a large amount of similar fields" what you mean is they "are very similar in nature".

 

In english, it's really easy to describe totally different things in similar words -- very generic words.  That's never the idea here.

 

If news and events in your project are pretty well the same thing, then certainly, having them share a table or a parent table is a great idea because you get to share functionality between them.  But if they are actually different things in your project, then having them share anything will just get in your way.

 

The questions you need to ask of your data are very simple.  Are the news and events "accidentally" the same, or are they the same for a real reason?  Just because two things are the same, doesn't mean that they'll stay the same. Hence the second question: Do you want upgrades to news to directly affect upgrades to events?  If you want them to grow in exactly the same direction, then they should share a table.  If you want them to grow similarly, then they should share a parent.  If you want them to have lives of their own, then they should be their own tables.

 

There's nothing wrong with two identical tables being their own tables, if they really are different.  Don't feel pressured to save tables, they're free.  Don't feel pressured to make everything look the same, that's the database's job -- it'll all be stored in the same mysql format no matter what you do.

 

The separations should serve you -- one way or the other.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

In theory, you should quote every post to which you reply.  In practice, you're rediculous to do so.  Look at what you just did.  You repeated the entire previous post.  That's literally retarded.

 

And someone can give you step by step directions on how to do something, without giving you any theory at all.  In case of fire, break glass.  Push the button to start the tractor.

 

In fact, I'd argue that all safety-instructions are done with zero safety.  In case of emergency, dial 9-1-1.

 

No why, no how, no if, on because.  Just do it.  And buy my shoes.  It works for marketing too.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

See: what happens when you break-up my comments is that you lose half of the context, half of the supporting arguments, and every possible clue.  You're on your own.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

You've said that without Google, you can't figure what something is.  I could tell you that I mis-spelled it, or I could tell you that there's more to knowledge than Google.  Perhaps you could ask a human being, and do some actual research on your own -- some real research, not just a search engine.  But in the end, this is the great example of your worldly understanding.  You don't know what something is, and you don't know where to find out, and you can't think of where to look beyond Google.

 

Now, back to your calculator.  Ever use your calculator for trigonometry?  Ever ask for the sine or cosine of an angle?  Ever wonder how the calculator gives you that answer?  I bet you'd be amazed at how your calculator calculates the cosine of 63 degrees.  And since trigonometry was done long before calculators, I'll bet that you'd be stupified as to how trigonometry was done a few hundred years ago.

 

I didn't refer to the "cost of your advice" -- that's free because it's not worth much more.  I referred to "the cost of what you advise".  Learn the difference.  Read the sentence as many times as you must.  It's English, and small words at that, so I will not rephrase it.

 

You most definitely came here to share and talk about useful ideas.  You did not come here to apply those, nor inspire others to develop their own --  which is why you've managed to goad me into talking and sharing with you, and not into actually presenting useful code to others.

 

There are benefits to not understanding something that have nothing to do with making errors.  Not understanding something allows you to be free of repeating the same, shall we say inefficiencies.  Yes I am a pioneer in my field.  I entered a perfectly good existing field, and chose to make it better in a certain direction, because I saw it missing in others' interpretation of the same field.  Had I known why they did what they did (and still do), then I would not have been capable of guiding my own path.  If you ever choose to follow your own path, you'll discover that the benefits are no where near the beginning, and you never end up where you thought you'd be.  But you end up in a place that no one ever knew could exist.  And that's the pioneering part.

 

I don't believe in school -- the word is an accurate description of the process, which has zero educational context.  And school is free around here, so I'd save zero money by not sending my children to school (I don't own any young goats, by the way.).  But I never said that being taught by teachers and then ignoring them isn't a good thing.  In fact, if you read through my general context again, you'll note the opposite.  There's a skill to being able to ignore dumbass information, the repeated mistakes of others, the delusions followed by the masses, and the over-simplifications that come from incomplete tutorials.  Just as well, there are skills to be learned in verifying what's been taught to you, which parts are useful, and how you can be inspired to take things further, farther, or turn things around.  Those are the skills to be learned in school -- those, and how to become immune to illnesses that thrive in the enclosed proximities of indoor populations.

 

So why waste my time telling you things that you might not understand?  I think I've answered that question.

 

 

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

Ok, so you have no idea what an erline table is.  I guess it would sound like nonsense to you.  But that's very consistent with the majority of your arguments.  So I'm disappointed, but not surprised. 

 

You're just totally wrong when you say that you need to effectively use something to have the value of using it.  You've completely ignored the costs associated with acquiring formal knowledge of any given device.  For the number of defective calculators out there, that formal knowledge is way to high of a cost to cover the few defective calculators. 

 

You, like so many others, completely disregard the costs of what you advise.  That's irresponsible.  But since you don't actually do anything with your knowledge, it's not surprising that you don't see its cost.

 

You also lose out on all of the benefits that can be gained by specifically not understanding how a device works; there are many, and most of them surround not only speed but innovation.  So basically, you're slow, uninspiring, and completely text-book about everything.  Which means that you should teach; and then your students should ignore you.

 

But that's typical of most in your position.  So good luck.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

You know what an erline table it, or you wouldn't think it irrelevant.  They fly in the face of your theory concept, as they are nothing more than real-world look-up tables derived purely from observational experience, summarizing data that can't be predicted from any known algorithm.

 

And certainly, we don't ever want to "judge the usefulness" of anything.  We want to demonstrate the usefulness. Two very different things.

 

But we left on-topic long ago.

[Query: retrieve NULL values]

Ever heard of an erline table?  100% practice, 0% theory.  And they are considered as gospel by many industries, markets, and algorithms.

 

Life is like an erline table; someone's already gotten what you're gonna get.

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I don't ever need to care about the fundamentals because I don't ever need my output to be precise.  That's what you're missing.  I need my output to be consistent, not precise.  If it's consistently incorrect, then I can build a system where 1 + 1 = 3.  The fact that 1+1=2 is totally arbitrary.  As long as the function is consistent, I can chain it with something else that's consistent, and that's all that is needed to build a machine -- computer, logic, or any other type of machine.

 

You spend a lot of time saying that others "can't prove" whatever they are saying.  That's where you've hit your own fallacious assumption as conclusion rubbish.  I don't need to prove it.  It doesn't matter if I can prove it. 

 

What matters is that I can depend on it.  I've observed it, time and time again, and I can depend on my observing it again.

 

It doesn't need to be proven.  It also doesn't need to be always true.  It just needs to be consistent.

 

Theory doesn't help me, or anyone else, earn more.  The academic world doens't earn much of anything -- respect included.

 

Practice earns more.  Because the only way to prove that something will work, to another human being with something to lose, is to have them believe that you've done it many times before. 

 

What you miss with theory, that you absolutely never miss with practice, is the incomplete and unforseen and chaotic and unpredictable elements.  You don't know what you don't know.  I know that I've done it.  So I know that it can be done.  Maybe not always, but at least once.  Deductive reason is way more absolute than inductive reason. 

 

And if I've done it time and time again, then I know that it can be done time and time again.  That's it.  That's the whole thing.

 

No amount of theory will prove to anyone, including to yourself, that something will continue to work, because it'll never convince anyone that you haven't missed some little but significant thing.

 

Enough practice will convince everybody that it'll happen when you do it again -- to an acceptable level of certainly.  And that's all that counts when it comes to convincing someone else to risk losing something on your behalf.