Posted by David Portas on 04/22/06 10:20

Rico wrote:
> I probably shouldn't open my mouth in the presence of some posters, but with
> regard to converting nulls being bad design; I have a bunch of reports that
> show loans and payments (just to make things simple). If I have no payment
> record (a null) then I have zero payments applied to the loan. By
> converting these null payment records to zero payments, is this considered
> in theory bad design? Or is this an exception to that rule. Is there a
> definition between what would be considered bad design and what is
> considered an exception?
>
> Not trying to raise a debate really, just asking for clarification.

If you have no payment record then why do you have a null?

Nulls are a source of complexity and error. On the other hand, avoiding
them can lead to complexity of a different kind - often requiring the
creation of additional tables for example. Whether to use nulls at all
is a controversial topic about which a huge amount has been written and
argued over. In practice, SQL database systems tend to make it very
hard to avoid them altogether.

--
David Portas, SQL Server MVP

Whenever possible please post enough code to reproduce your problem.
Including CREATE TABLE and INSERT statements usually helps.
State what version of SQL Server you are using and specify the content
of any error messages.

SQL Server Books Online:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/ms130214(en-US,SQL.90).aspx
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