Object Relational Mappers are evil (a meditation)

[Mick Krippendorf]

Ethan Furman schrieb:
> If I knew what First Anormal Form was [...]

This refers to the Normal Forms one goes through when normalizing
relational databases.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization#Normal_forms)

The First Anormal Form (FAN) means just lumpin' data together in a comma
separated string that has to be un-lumped in a program. When there is
more than one such program operating on the same FAN-field you can bet
they interpret "comma separated" differently, or one wants the comma
separated values sorted and gets confused when the other program inserts
values in arbitrary order, or, if the one program expects ints, and the
other inserts floats, maybe not even using dotted notation, but
commas... you get the picture. In summa: FAN  is evil.

Mick.