RE: [xml-dev] 2 questions about Relax NG: ID/IDREF datatype and whitespa

[Len Bullard <len.bullard@uai.com>]

The interesting questions 

1.  Are such ratios common?

2.  Why do some designs or domains have such high proportions of metadata
entities to data entities?

len


From: Peter Hunsberger [mailto:peter.hunsberger@gmail.com] 

I had sent this reply to Len off list, but it's sort of an interesting
debate so here it is again:

If you're collecting research data then, off hand, I'd say about 90%+:
 we're using a strongly typed version of a EAV model, only 5 tables
out of the 40 or so involved in the model actually collect the actual
data.

I had figured Len would come in high but not that high, instead he
agreed.  I actually think we can drop that ratio by recursively using
the data tables to store the metadata; sort of an uber schema. There
seems to be a belief in some circles that such a design result in a
lot  of extra joins, but in my experience if it's done right that's
not particularly true...

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