The reason this thread gets so many posts is because there are an infinite number of ways to do something wrong.  The drug/allergy example would be one of them.

First of...

The definition of Bucket of Crap: a file; more formally, Unstructured Data.  The main point being that it has no place inside a "so called" Relational Database system.

My recommendation, find...

"Further, it may very well be the case because of high-level abstrations, that it is the middle-tier that gives the data meaning."

It is true that the middle-tier contains the Business...

It depends on the information you are trying to store.  If the clinical trial data has any meaning at all, it has to be defined, and if it is defined...

"Let me say that I am teaching classes 'relational database design'."

God help us!

"Sometime when roads are bad off-road vehicles are better then the standard ones."

Exactly my point!  When you need...

I think we forget what an RDBMS actually is.  There are a myriad of ways to store data: embedded in the code ("hard-coded"), in a text file (something.cfg or somethingelse.ini...dare...

I would agree that a discussion as this would last forever because although we are discussing the same topic, there is confussion in the arguments being made.

You must seperate the...

You are right in that different problems lend themselves to different solutions.  Thus, Oracle has strenths best suited for particular types of problems, while SQL Server others, but each with...

Don't laugh...they're already here.  Not to name names, but one application already exists with a single table, two columns: an IDENTITY and a CLOB, all with XML.

Sincerely,

Anthony Thomas

The problem is that in the Distributed Architecture world, oftentimes, the application developer is also the systems developer, middleware developer, database developer, and, yes, the presentation layer developer.

We have lost...

Yes, we have one vended app that CAN NOT function--and I mean it will not run--unless you explicilty TURN OFF the auto create and auto update statistics.  I guess they...

I do not know why 300 tables has been the magic number in this discussion; it is irrelevant.  How do you design, create, and maintain, say, 3000 tables?  Answer: the...

This is NOT a purist approach; it is fundemental!

When you say 2 + 2 = 4, how do you know?  Not just because you've memorized it but how do you...

First and foremost a database is designed in order to establish order out of chaos.  It contains data to facilitate information sharing; however, it contains rules by virtue of relational...

nickmalik:

Thanks for all of the kind words. And, though, your response reads like a salutation, I would be very interested in any specific comments, arguments, thoughts you might have...