Re: Interesting question and debate on ddl tables with date fieldsthatwill not always have a value

Walden H. Leverich wrote:

Not arguing that you should rely on the null value to indicate that the
employee isn't terminated, rather that you should use the null value to
indicate that you don't have a value for the terminated date. Even with
a flag to indicate the status of the employee what value do you put into
the terminated date? You can argue that the value is irrelevant since
the employee isn't terminated, but you still need a value. Hence, use
null. :-)

However, that requires that you make the field null capable and that you handle the null indicator. And while I'm not necessarily arguing against the use of NULL, I'm perfectly happy using 01-01-0001. Or 12-31-9999, for that matter. It depends on whether you have a business requirement to include current employees on lists ordered by termination date, and where.

As always, it comes down to a business decision. I just wanted to register my disagreement with the comments that not using nulls is somehow technologically backwards. That sort of "my way or the highway" mentality is better left for religious zealots - or political ones.

Joe