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I used to work for a company in 2017 that was affiliated with a ruling party's tax information agency. The website was janky and the database .. oh the horrors.

Every single record was a JSON object stored in a NEW COLUMN.

That's right. If you had 10K records then the table had 1 row with 10K columns with each column contained JSON data in it.

I understood then, why government websites are so crap.

Anyway, I untangled it and made the performance better to a degree that my then-boss didn't believe what I pulled off.

But yeah, I never got any pay increments or whatever, It was a good dopamine boost to my boss which lasted only 15 mins.

I don't believe in improving code ever since because of the fact that I ain't getting paid extra, so why bother.

Comments
  • 9
    Code improvements are not for the company. It’s for you. Because you have to work with the code.
  • 16
    Whenever i think i have learned about the worst possible database design someone comes up with something ever shittier.
  • 4
    @horus The worst you have seen ... SO FAR !!

    It could always get worse.
  • 3
    @Sid2006 Appareantly. But how could what you described being topped?
  • 7
    @horus The entire database is a JSON object of arrays representing tables stored in the field main of the single record in table main.
  • 2
    @lorentz maybe this would be the final bad DB design indeed.
  • 4
    @horus There is *always* a way to make something worse. Quality has only an upper limit. There is no such limit in the down direction.
  • 2
    @horus JSON objects stored in an excel sheet
  • 2
    @electrineer excel binaries stored in JSON objects stored in a CSV file loaded as an external table
  • 1
    @horus putting "final" there is just asking for the boss to develop a second stage, probably by making the single record a JSON object too
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