Validating the Structure
Validation is done by using precise examples, asking ourselves if we have a column to place all information, covering all cases. Maybe there will be exceptions—what to do with those? Should our structure handle them? We can assess the risk factor associated with those exceptions, versus the cost of handling them and the possible loss in performance for the queries.
An example of an exception: a customer buys two cars the same day—this could influence the choice of primary key, if a date is part of this key, it will be conducive to add a column to this key: the time of day for the sale.
The phpMyAdmin utility can prove useful here. Tables are easily built with this software, while its index management feature permits us to ...
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