I agree with you, Lester...
(Now, back to the shadows) ;-)

On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 13:07:31 +0000, Lester Caine wrote:

>Dmitry Yemanov wrote:
>
>> "Daniel Rail" <daniel@...> wrote:
>>
>>>So why not simply change the types SMALLINT fields to actual VARCHAR,
>>>in the next ODS version change
>>
>> This will make database downgrade impossible as it breaks older gbak
>> versions. We cannot change existing columns.
>>
>>>And, if this means one less step/code to execute, then I'm all for it.
>>>Anything to improve performance, even if it might be small, is good.
>>
>> It has nothing to do with performance as the engine doesn't use RDB$TYPES at
>> all.
>
>Not exactly related, but I am having trouble getting the use of simple
>integer fields for things like 'page type' - the postgres people seem to
>prefer to use a 16 to 32 character text field in every record. To my
>mind using the SMALLINT field makes a lot more sense, with a table for
>the longer text conversions. Then you only need to work with the numbers
>elsewhere. Currently some 120 odd bytes of data are duplicated on every
>record, where half a dozen types are all that is needed.
>
>So it's useful to have the SMALLINT field - WHERE the text goes is a
>different problem ?
>
>--
>Lester Caine
>-----------------------------
>L.S.Caine Electronic Services
>Treasurer - Firebird Foundation Inc.
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