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• When using Direct3D, how much math is being done on the CPU?

  - by zirgen

  Context: I'm just starting out. I'm not even touching the Direct3D 11 API, and instead looking at understanding the pipeline, etc. From looking at documentation and information floating around the web, it seems like some calculations are being handled by the application. That, is, instead of simply presenting matrices to multiply to the GPU, the calculations are being done by a math library that operates on the CPU. I don't have any particular resources to point to, although I guess I can point to the XNA Math Library or the samples shipped in the February DX SDK. When you see code like mViewProj = mView * mProj;, that projection is being calculated on the CPU. Or am I wrong? If you were writing a program, where you can have 10 cubes on the screen, where you can move or rotate cubes, as well as viewpoint, what calculations would you do on the CPU? I think I would store the geometry for the a single cube, and then transform matrices representing the actual instances. And then it seems I would use the XNA math library, or another of my choosing, to transform each cube in model space. Then get the coordinates in world space. Then push the information to the GPU. That's quite a bit of calculation on the CPU. Am I wrong? Am I reaching conclusions based on too little information and understanding? What terms should I Google for, if the answer is STFW? Or if I am right, why aren't these calculations being pushed to the GPU as well?

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• Is it possible to tie nested generics?

  - by Michael Deardeuff

  Is it possible to tie nested generics/captures together? I often have the problem of having a Map lookup of class to genericized item of said class. In concrete terms I want something like this (no, T is not declared anywhere). private Map<Class<T>, ServiceLoader<T>> loaders = Maps.newHashMap(); In short, I want loaders.put/get to have semantics something like these: <T> ServiceLoader<T> get(Class<T> klass) {...} <T> void put(Class<T> klass, ServiceLoader<T> loader) {...} Is the following the best I can do? Do I have to live with the inevitable @SuppressWarnings("unchecked") somewhere down the line? private Map<Class<?>, ServiceLoader<?>> loaders = Maps.newHashMap();

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• smart phone UI limitations

  - by Manny

  I would like to know, what limitations there are for how far one can go in terms of replacing UI components of current touch screen smart phones, in particular iPhone, Blackberry and android based phones. What I would like to do is create a custom UI for dialing out and incoming calls. I have some experience with Blackberry development. The theme builder for it, can be used to customize certain items on the incoming call screen, but it doesn't look like that you can increase the size of answer button. I know Blackberry also gives you access to all the phone APIs, but I'm not sure that you can create your own UI that can gain preference over the Blackberry incoming call screen. And if you try to customize the incoming call screen by adding any buttons to it, they would be rendered as pictures. I could possibly design a complete UI for android, since different manufactures have different UI for android based phones. Can I do what I want to do using iPhone, Blackberry or android? Or any other phone for that matter? I am guessing may be for Nokia phones using Qt, but I prefer the 3 platforms I listed. Thanks for all your help.

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• Does running IIS7 in classic mode affect MVC output caching?

  - by Bob

  I have a need to run an application in classic mode for backwards compatibility with a specific application, and am trying to understand what kind of impact that will have on the performance of an MVC application that is running on the site. If we put a few static file maps (for .js, .css, .png, etc) above the ASP.NET wildcard map to reduce the amount of processing by the ASP.NET handler, will we be approaching the integrated mode in terms of performance? The thing i'm primarily concerned with is any effect this might have on output caching. I understand that integrated mode might (?) allow for the output cache to handle non ASP.NET content, but that isn't really a concern. We're more interested in ensuring that the MVC application has full use of the output cache. Empirically i've found that the two configurations operate on par when things go well, but if the page references resources that are not available, the integrated mode tends to fail much more quickly than the classic mode (e.g. 500 ms vs 10 seconds), reducing 'hang time' on the page load. Thanks for any feedback.

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• CSS/Javascript: multiple columns

  - by Patrick

  hi, I'm looking for a columnizer plugin (making columns of my small divs). It is very important it has the following features: 1) It has to be as light as possible (if it is only css would be great, but I guess it is difficult make it work on IE then...) 2) It has to be cross-browser (I don't need IE6... IE7 and IE8 compatibility is required). 3) The divs has not to be broken. In other terms, the nodes have to be moved to next block but not splitted in 2. The nodes are div elements, they might include other divs, images and text. 4) The column have to have a fixed width and fixed margin. This means that when I resize the browser, and new columns are created (become the window becomes wider), the new columns have to rigidly keep the same width and distance between them. (margin:20px) (width:200px) Would be great to have some css.. but I'm afraid I need some jQuery plugin because I need all 4 features being supported. I found several plugins and css styleshits with very good solutions, but I couldn't find a complete one. Thanks

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• License of popular dictionary word lists (e.g. SOWPODS, TWL)? Copyright? Trademarks?

  - by BobbyJim

  (I'm not sure if this off-topic. I found a lot of voted-up questions about software licenses and this is related. Plus, I'm sure many of us have had the situation that we need to use a dictionary in our code) I'm making a (maybe commercial) word game and need to use a good word dictionary for checking words. The most common dictionaries to use are the SOWPODS or TWL lists that are used Scrabble tournaments; see here: http://www.scrabblist.com/ (I have nothing to do with this site by the way). I've seen loads of websites offering these two dictionaries for download and loads of word games advertise that they use them. However, I cannot find any licensing terms attached to these dictionaries wherever I download them. For the players of my game, I'd want to say what dictionary I'm using (e.g. "this game uses SOWPODS"). However, I'm nervous about what I can do legally. Does anyone know about if you can copyright lists of words? Does anyone know the licenses of TWL and SOWPODS? TWL and SOWPODS don't seem to have trademarks on them but I'd like to know for sure. I cannot find any good sources for this information. EDIT: Great, now the top result for "SOWPODS license" is my stackoverflow question. :)

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• Looping over commits for a file with jGit

  - by Andy Jarrett

  I've managed to get to grips with the basics of jGit file in terms of connecting to a repos and adding, commiting, and even looping of the commit messages for the files. File gitDir = new File("/Users/myname/Sites/helloworld/.git"); RepositoryBuilder builder = new RepositoryBuilder(); Repository repository; repository = builder.setGitDir(gitDir).readEnvironment() .findGitDir().build(); Git git = new Git(repository); RevWalk walk = new RevWalk(repository); RevCommit commit = null; // Add all files // AddCommand add = git.add(); // add.addFilepattern(".").call(); // Commit them // CommitCommand commit = git.commit(); // commit.setMessage("Commiting from java").call(); Iterable<RevCommit> logs = git.log().call(); Iterator<RevCommit> i = logs.iterator(); while (i.hasNext()) { commit = walk.parseCommit( i.next() ); System.out.println( commit.getFullMessage() ); } What I want to do next is be able to get all the commit message for a single file and then be able revert the single file back to a specific reference/point in time.

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• Java Recursion Triangle Standing on Tip

  - by user1629075

  I was wondering how to create triangle out of asterisks on its tip rather than on its base. I have the code for making it stand on its base: public static String printTriangle (int count) { if( count <= 0 ) return ""; String p = printTriangle(count - 1); p = p + "*"; System.out.print(p); System.out.print("\n"); return p; } But then I'm stuck on how to have the greatest number of stars on the top, and then the next least, and so on. I was thinking something along the terms of having (count - p) to have the input of rows be subtracted from the amount of decrease, but then i was confused by this idea because p is string. EDIT: I tried changing the position of printTriangle(count - 1) using my original method without iterations and got 1 star per each line; how can I fix this? public class triangles { public static void main(String[] args) { printTriangle(5); } public static String printTriangle (int count) { if( count <= 0 ) return ""; String p = ""; p = p + "*"; System.out.print(p); System.out.print("\n"); p = printTriangle(count - 1); return p; } }

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• .Net in HTML tp return true if reader object not null, otherwise return false

  - by Phill Healey

  I'm using a DataList to show some data from the database and populating the fields on the html side. I now have a requirement to change the visibility of a panel based on whether or not a db field has data or not. I need to be able to show the panel if the relevant data field has content, and hide it if it doesn't. Eg: <asp:Panel ID="pnlNew" runat="server" Style="margin:0; padding:0; width:42px; height:18px; bottom:5px; right:10px; float:right; position:relative; background:url(../_imgVideoBadge.png) no-repeat;" Visible='<%# Eval("cheese") != null %>' ToolTip="available"></asp:Panel> Obviously this doesn't work in terms of the visible property. But hopefully it gives an idea of what I'm trying to achieve. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've seen examples previously of doing something along the lines of: a ?? b:c How could this be applied to the above requirement?? Thanks in advance.

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• Many users, many cpus, no delays. Good for cloud?

  - by Eric

  I wish to set up a CPU-intensive time-important query service for users on the internet. A usage scenario is described below. Is cloud computing the right way to go for such an implementation? If so, what cloud vendor(s) cater to this type of application? I ask specifically, in terms of: 1) pricing 2) latency resulting from: - slow CPUs, instance creations, JIT compiles, etc.. - internal management and communication of processes inside the cloud (e.g. a queuing process and a calculation process) - communication between cloud and end user 3) ease of deployment A usage scenario I am expecting is: - A typical user sends a query (XML of size around 1K) once every 30 seconds on average. - Each query requires a numerical computation of average time 0.2 sec and max time 1 sec on a 1 GHz Pentium. The computation requires no data other than the query itself and is performed by the same piece of code each time. - The delay a user experiences between sending a query and receiving a response should be on average no more than 2 seconds and in general no more than 5 seconds. - A background save to a DB of the response should occur (not time critical) - There can be up to 30000 simultaneous users - i.e., on average 1000 queries a second, each requiring an average 0.2 sec calculation, so that would necessitate around 200 CPUs. Currently I'm look at GAE Java (for quicker deployment and less IT hassle) and EC2 (Speed and price optimization) as options. Where can I learn more about the right way to set ups such a system? past threads, different blogs, books, etc.. BTW, if my terminology is wrong or confusing, please let me know. I'd greatly appreciate any help.

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• I have a bunch of template parameters that I want to hide from my users. How can I do this?

  - by Alex

  I have a superclass which is defined in terms of a few internal types it uses. Subclassing is performed as so: template <class InternalType1, class InternalType2> class Super { ... } class Sub : Super <interalTypeClass1, interalTypeClass2> { ... } But when I want to write a function that takes a pointer to the superclass, this happens : template <class InternalType1, class InternalType2> void function(Super<InternalType1, InternalType2>* in) { ... } The user really shouldn't know anything about the inside classes, and should really just concern himself with the use of the function. Some of these template lists become very very large, and expecting the user to pass them every time is wasteful, in my opinion. Any suggestions? EDIT: The function needs to know the internal types in use, so unless there is a way to access template types at compile time, I think there is no solution? Potential solution: Have each class do the following: #define SubTemplateArgs <SubTypeName, SubInternalType1, SubInternalType2> ?

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• Upgrade to iPhone 3.0 sdk and now simulator shows blank screen.

  - by NoShitMcGee

  I have an iPhone app that uses an UITabBarController, which contains two UINavigationControllers, each of which in turn contains one or more TableViewControllers (actually, customized UIViewControllers implementing UITableViewDelegate and UITableViewDataSource. ) On launch, it displays the UITabBarController with one of the tableviews displayed. Everything is coded; Interface Builder was NOT used to make any of the UI stuff. It was written in SDK 2. It worked fine in sdk 2. I recently updated to SDK 3.0. In Info, I set the Base SDK setting to iPhone Simulator 3.0. Now, when I launch the application in Simulator, I see only a blank white screen with the status bar at the top. No signs of my app. However, when I exit the app, the missing tableview displays briefly as the exiting animation is playing. Also, on the blank white screen I can still click where the navigation buttons should be and find that, when I exit the app and the missing screen briefly displays, that navigation has taken me to another screen. So the buttons work, and presumably the tableviewcells are there, they just cannot be seen. Has anyone seen anything like this? Does anyone have any idea what is causing it and how I can fix it? I noticed that sample apps, such as SQLiteBooks, seem to work fine when updating to SDK 3.0. My app isn't very much different from SQLiteBooks in terms of technologies used, except that, as I said above, I do not use Interface Builder. Thanks

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• Convert SVG to PDF

  - by Adrian Smith

  How would one go about converting a SVG file to a PDF programatically? (I need to alter the SVG in certain respects before generating the PDF so simply pre-converting it using a tool won't be sufficient.) Ideally using Java but Perl or PHP would be fine too. Obviously I am basically considering Apache FOP and Batik with Java. However no matter how long I search I cannot find a simple introduction on how to do it. Things like SVGConverter have descriptions like "Defines the interface for classes that are able to convert part or all of a GraphicContext", but I don't really know what that means. I have this feeling there must be an API to do this quite simply, provided by FOP or Batik, but I'm just not able to find it at the moment (or perhaps it really doesn't exist.) In terms of the supported SVG features I need, the file has some paths which are filled with some linear gradients. Ideally if I could pass the SVG in as a DOM Document that would be ideal; then I would load my template SVG file, change it as specified by the user, and then generate the PDF.

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• Best way to limit results in MySQL with user subcategories

  - by JM4

  I am trying to essentially solve for the following: 1) Find all users in the system who ONLY have programID 1. 2) Find all users in the system who have programID 1 AND any other active program. My tables structures (in very simple terms are as follows): users userID | Name ================ 1 | John Smith 2 | Lewis Black 3 | Mickey Mantle 4 | Babe Ruth 5 | Tommy Bahama plans ID | userID | plan | status --------------------------- 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 5 | 2 | 3 | 1 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 7 | 3 | 2 | 1 8 | 3 | 3 | 1 9 | 3 | 4 | 1 10 | 4 | 2 | 1 11 | 4 | 4 | 1 12 | 5 | 1 | 1 I know I can easily find all members with a specific plan with something like the following: SELECT * FROM users a JOIN plans b ON (a.userID = b.userID) WHERE b.plan = 1 AND b.status = 1 but this will only tell me which users have an 'active' plan 1. How can I tell who ONLY has plan 1 (in this case only userID 5) and how to tell who has plan 1 AND any other active plan? Update: This is not to get a count, I will actually need the original member information, including all the plans they have so a COUNT(*) response may not be what I'm trying to achieve.

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• Most efficient way to LIMIT results in a JOIN?

  - by johnnietheblack

  I have a fairly simple one-to-many type join in a MySQL query. In this case, I'd like to LIMIT my results by the left table. For example, let's say I have an accounts table and a comments table, and I'd like to pull 100 rows from accounts and all the associated comments rows for each. Thy only way I can think to do this is with a sub-select in in the FROM clause instead of simply selecting FROM accounts. Here is my current idea: SELECT a.*, c.* FROM (SELECT * FROM accounts LIMIT 100) a LEFT JOIN `comments` c on c.account_id = a.id ORDER BY a.id However, whenever I need to do a sub-select of some sort, my intermediate level SQL knowledge feels like it's doing something wrong. Is there a more efficient, or faster, way to do this, or is this pretty good? By the way... This might be the absolute simplest way to do this, which I'm okay with as an answer. I'm simply trying to figure out if there IS another way to do this that could potentially compete with the above statement in terms of speed.

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• Reference - What does this error mean in PHP?

  - by hakre

  On Stackoverflow you can see a lot of questions popping up about errors. Some users do not even know that error messages exists, others are asking about code that gives an error message but they do not understand the error message. If the error message is common, many questions about the same kind of error appears, but it is hard to find existing Q&A about the topic. Please add "your favorite" error message, one per answer, a short description what it means (even if it is only highlighting terms to their manual page) and a listing of existing Q&A that are of value. This will create a list. The question is a community wiki, so you are not answering for reputation but for creating a reference list for new users. It's based on error messages. Compare with the existing Reference - What does this symbol mean in PHP? question, which works pretty well. What are common errors in PHP and what are their Solutions. Index of Errors Just starting, but there are already some: Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent Warning: mysql_fetch_array() expects parameter 1 to be resource, boolean given in ... on line Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_XXX in YYY on line ZZZ Fatal Error: Call to a member function ... on a non-object

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• Not Understanding Basics Of Dynamic DataBinding (bindPropety) In Flex

  - by Joshua

  I need to dynamically bind properties of components created at runtime. In this particular case please assume I need to use bindProperty. I don't quite understand why the following simplistic test is failing (see code). When I click the button, the label text does not change. I realize that there are simpler ways to go about this particular example using traditional non-dynamic binding, but I need to understand it in terms of using bindProperty. Can someone please help me understand what I'm missing? <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" xmlns:ns1="Tools.*" minWidth="684" minHeight="484" xmlns:ns2="*" creationComplete="Init();"> <mx:Script> <![CDATA[ import mx.collections.ArrayCollection; import mx.binding.utils.*; public var Available:ArrayCollection=new ArrayCollection(); public function get Value():String { return (Available.getItemAt(0).toString()); } public function Init():void { Available.addItemAt('Before', 0); BindingUtils.bindProperty(Lab, 'text', this, 'Value'); } public function Test():void { Available.setItemAt('After', 0); } ]]> </mx:Script> <mx:Label x="142" y="51" id="Lab"/> <mx:Button x="142" y="157" label="Button" click="Test();"/> </mx:WindowedApplication> Thanks in advance.

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• Emulating a computer running MS-DOS

  - by Richard

  Writing emulators has always fascinated me. Now I want to write an emulator for an IBM PC and run MS-DOS on it (I've got the floppy image files). I have good experience in C++ and C and basic knowledge of assembler and the architecture of a CPU. I also know that there are thousands of emulators out there doing exactly what I want to do, but I'd be doing this for pure joy only. How much work do I have to expect? (If my goal is to boot DOS and create a text file with it, all emulated) What CPU should I emulate ? Where can I find documentation on how the machine code is organized and which opcodes mean what, so I can unpack and execute them correctly with my emulator? Does MS-DOS still run on the newest generations of processors? Would it theoretically be able to natively run on a 64-bit AMD Phenom 2 processor w/ a modern mainboard, HDD, RAM, etc.? What else, besides emulating the CPU, could be an important factor (in terms of difficulty)? I would only aim for outputting / inputting text to the system via the host system's console, no sound or other more advanced IO etc. Have you written an emulator yet? What was your first one for? How hard was it? Do you have any special tips for me? Thanks in advance

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• Zend Framework: How to display multiple actions, each requiring different authorizations levels, on

  - by Iain

  Imagine I have 4 database tables, and an interface that presents forms for the management of the data in each of these tables on a single webpage (using the accordion design pattern to show only one form at a time). Each form is displayed with a list of rows in the table, allowing the user to insert a new row or select a row to edit or delete. AJAX is then used to send the request to the server. A different set of forms must be displayed to different users, based on the application ACL. My question is: In terms of controllers, actions, views, and layouts, what is the best architecture for this interface? For example, so far I have a controller with add, edit and delete actions for each table. There is an indexAction for each, but it's an empty function. I've also extended Zend_Form for each table. To display the forms, I then in the IndexController pass the Forms to it's view, and echo each form. Javascript then takes care of populating the form and sending requests to the appropraite add/edit/delete action of the appropriate controller. This however doesn't allow for ACL to control the display or not of Forms to different users. Would it be better to have the indexAction instantiate the form, and then use something like $this-render(); to render each view within the view of the indexAction of the IndexController? Would ACL then prevent certain views from being rendered? Cheers.

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• Automatically Organize Tags in Tax/Folksonomy

  - by Rob Wilkerson

  I'm working on a process that will perform natural language processing (NLP) on one--and potentially several--of our content rich sites. What I'd like to do once the NLP is complete is to automatically organize the output (generally a set of terms that you might think of as tags given the prevalence of that metaphor) into some kind of standard or generally accepted organizational structure. In a perfect world, I'd really like this to be crowd sourced under the folksonomy concept (as opposed to a taxonomy) since the ultimate goal is to target/appeal to real people rather than "domain experts", but I'm open to ideas and best practices. For the obvious purpose of scalability, I'd like to automate the population of this tax/folksonomy so that "some guy" in the team/organization isn't responsible for looking at a bunch of words (with or without context) and arbitrarily fleshing out the contextual components of the tree. I have a few ideas for doing this that require some research to establish viability, but I have exactly zero practical experience with this sort of thing so the ideas really just boil down to stuff I made up that might perform some role in accomplishing the task. Imagining that others have vastly more experience with this sort of thing, I'm hoping that I can stand on your shoulders. Thanks for your thoughts and insights.

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• What's the "correct way" to organize this project?

  - by user571747

  I'm working on a project that allows multiple users to submit large data files and perform operations on them. The "backend" which performs these operations is written in Perl while the "frontend" uses PHP to load HTML template files and determines which content to deliver. Data is stored in a database (MySQL, SQLite, Oracle) and while there is data which has not yet been acted upon, Perl adds it to a running queue which delivers data to other threads based on system load. In addition, there may be pre- and post-processing of the data before and after the main Perl script operates (the specifications are unclear) so I may want to allow these processors to be user-selectable plugins. I had been writing this project in a more procedural fashion but I am quickly realizing the benefit of separating concerns as to limit the scope one change has on the rest of the project. I'm quite unexperienced with design patterns and am curious what the best way to proceed is. I've heard MVC thrown around quite a bit but I am unsure of how to apply it. Specifically, what are some good options to structure this code (in terms of design patterns and folder hierarchy)? How can I achieve this with both PHP and Perl while minimizing duplicated code between languages? Should I keep my PHP files in the top level so I don't have ugly paths in the URL? Also, if I want to provide interchangeable databases, does each table need its own DAO implementation?

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• Connecting a django application to a drupal database?

  - by Hans

  I have a 3 - 4000 nodes in a drupal 6 installation on mysql and want to access these data through my django application. I have used manage.py inspectdb to get a skeleton of a model structure. I guess that there are good/historical reasons for drupal's database schemes, but find that there are some hard to understand structure and that there are some challenges in applying django models on the database. Some experiences this far are: node and node revision are intertwined and I solved this by using a OneToOneField (don't need the versions). This meens that the node's body gets accessible through node.vid.body, but it works. Foreign keys need to define the proper db_column to sort out the primary keys. Terms need to use an intermediary table with ManyToManyField.through. Drupal stores both the original and the thumbnailed/resized versions of any image as files in the files table. Does anyone have experiences in accessing drupal data in django? Are there better solution to for example the node <- node revision relationship? Drupal stores time/dates as unix-style timestamps in integerfields. Any recommendations? How about time zones?

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• Efficient and accurate way to compact and compare Python lists?

  - by daveslab

  Hi folks, I'm trying to a somewhat sophisticated diff between individual rows in two CSV files. I need to ensure that a row from one file does not appear in the other file, but I am given no guarantee of the order of the rows in either file. As a starting point, I've been trying to compare the hashes of the string representations of the rows (i.e. Python lists). For example: import csv hashes = [] for row in csv.reader(open('old.csv','rb')): hashes.append( hash(str(row)) ) for row in csv.reader(open('new.csv','rb')): if hash(str(row)) not in hashes: print 'Not found' But this is failing miserably. I am constrained by artificially imposed memory limits that I cannot change, and thusly I went with the hashes instead of storing and comparing the lists directly. Some of the files I am comparing can be hundreds of megabytes in size. Any ideas for a way to accurately compress Python lists so that they can be compared in terms of simple equality to other lists? I.e. a hashing system that actually works? Bonus points: why didn't the above method work?

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• Implementation help... Subclass NSManagedObject?

  - by Canada Dev

  I'm working on an app where I have some products that I download in a list. The downloaded products are displayed in a table and each will is showing a detail view with more information. These same products can be saved as a favorite, and for this I am using Core Data. I'd like to be able to re-use a bunch of views for displaying the products, which means the stores object and the downloaded object would have to be the same kind. Now, how would I go about best implementing the objects? Can I make a class such as this: FavoriteProduct : NSManageObject // implementation and then subclass Product : FavoriteProduct // implementation ? The CD class just doesn't give me everything. What would be the best way to merge these two object classes so I have as little work ahead of me in terms of implementing the different views for each object? Basically, I just want to be able to call the same methods, etc. on the Product objects as I would on the ones that are FavoriteProduct objects, and re-use views for both kinds. There's only a bit of difference between the two (one is of course stored as a favorite and has some extra values such as notes, tags, while the Product one doesn't). Thanks in advance

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• database design - empty fields

  - by imanc

  Hey, I am currently debating an issue with a guy on my dev team. He believes that empty fields are bad news. For instance, if we have a customer details table that stores data for customers from different countries, and each country has a slightly different address configuration - plus 1-2 extra fields, e.g. French customer details may also store details for entry code, and floor/level plus title fields (madamme, etc.). South Africa would have a security number. And so on. Given that we're talking about minor variances my idea is to put all of the fields into the table and use what is needed on each form. My colleague believes we should have a separate table with extra data. E.g. customer_info_fr. But this seams to totally defeat the purpose of a combined table in the first place. His argument is that empty fields / columns is bad - but I'm struggling to find justification in terms of database design principles for or against this argument and preferred solutions. Another option is a separate mini EAV table that stores extra data with parent_id, key, val fields. Or to serialise extra data into an extra_data column in the main customer_data table. I think I am confused because what I'm discussing is not covered by 3NF which is what I would typically use as a reference for how to structure data. So my question specifically: - if you have slight variances in data for each record (1-2 different fields for instance) what is the best way to proceed?

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