[Year 12 IT Apps] MS Access - Calculated fields

[Andrew Shortell]

hi Damien

I have moved to stressing that databases get rid of duplicate data  -- leads me nicely into normalisation -- and thus any item of data only needs to be changed in a single spot

I never talk about saving space nowadays - or reducing processing given the speed of modern equipment 

so best practice is reducing duplication,

creating a query just to get a calculated field ... is that not "duplication" of effort? thus in efficient ?? (  *grin  )

Andrew

Andrew Shortell
Educator
CRC Melton


shortell at get2me.net (This List)
@acsbear8 (twitter)
VITTA CoM Member





On 13/02/2014, at 1:38 PM, "ATKINSON-BUCK, Damien" <Damien.ATKINSON-BUCK at ivanhoe.com.au> wrote:

> Hi folks,
>             Just looking into Outcome 2 and looking at the 2010 version of MS Access. I hadn’t noticed before, but you can now create a calculated field  in the table definitions. This means that not only does it do the calculation (duh) but stores that value too, so you no longer have to create a query to do that.
> Now, I always stress to my cherubs that one of the primary reasons for making a database is to reduce the amount of space the data is going to take up. This new ‘feature’ does the reverse. Given hard drives are so cheap and our down databases are comparatively quite small, it doesn’t really affect SAC scenarios……… but should we be teaching best practices or “The Way of the Access”? How do others feel about this?
> Cheers
> Damien
> 
> Damien Atkinson-Buck
> Head of Learning Area: Technology/Arts
> p: +61 3 9490 3848
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