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"Show me your flowcharts [code], and conceal your tables [schema], and I shall continue to be mystified; show me your tables [schema] and I won't usually need your flowcharts [code]: they'll be obvious." -- Fred Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month", ch 9.

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I once wrote to John Carmack as a Quake-obsessed kid, asking for any advice he has for an aspiring programmer and if he had any favourite books. To my surprise he wrote back a really thoughtful response, including the following:

"Read The Mythical Man Month. I remember thinking that a book that old can't say anything relevant about software development today, but I was wrong."

I came here to share this quote because it's so true.

Except when the effort to change the database schema becomes significantly greater than the effort to change the code, and then application developers start abusing the database because it's faster and they have things to do.

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