Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Akronymus 1780 days ago
For Databases, it takes me a concious effort to not go to at least 3rd NF.

Except for addresses/names/telephone numbers, I have been burned by ANY assumption I made. Those, I tend to just store as something like char(255) nowadays by default, unless business requirements force me to split it up, but even then, after voicing my concerns.

Edit: reading up on the addresses falsehoods again, 255 may not be enough.

https://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-...

https://github.com/google/libphonenumber/blob/master/FALSEHO...

https://www.mjt.me.uk/posts/falsehoods-programmers-believe-a...

1 comments

If you use Postgres or SQLite, TEXT is preferable for strings.
I just wanted to give a easily understood example. Specifically to point out that even limiting the length can make problems.