I'm not sure I'm following the question, but that's never stopped me from throwing out an answer before

Are you asking why anyone would restrict the size of any given field? Personally, I don't restrict anywhere I don't have to. I like having fields that are just NUMBER with no restrictions, but that's just my style. I don't like arbitrary restrictions, but many people do. Oracle obviously does. They make you set restrictions on every single variable in the whole bloody database. So lots of people set maximum sizes for every single field - it's a fairly standard practice. What's the problem?

Are you asking why anyone would come up with a standardized set of datatypes and sizes? Well, whether your standard is to set limits on every field or not, enforcing your set of standards is always a good idea. Consistency is more important than accuracy, as they say. So what's wrong with saying there are 2 standard currency definitions that we like and here they are? What's the problem?

As far as enforcing a business rule at the table definition level - don't kid yourself - EVERYTHING in the database is the implementation of a business rule. Now, the database should strive to be larger and more generic than the application that it is first written with, because databases live longer than mere applications. Regardless, however, they exist for the sole purpose of satisfying a business need, and therefore exist completely within a world of business rules. So, if the rule is that no quanity shall ever be larger than 999, then so be it. You can argue against such an arbitrary limitation, and I would, but in the end, the database serves the business rules. So yeah - they might be database implementations of business rules. Again, what's the problem?

As far as Power Designer goes - it's a very nice product. I haven't used it in several years, but I remember it being a lot better than ErWin in the usability department. Of course, once I got into ErWin's macro language-capabilities, I never looked back - they are incredibly powerful (although very poorly implemented). ErWin has a whole host of usability issues that they seem truly incapable of solving, and most of which Power Designer handles very nicely. Having said that, both products are still orders of magnitude better than Oracle's POS designing product, from what I've seen. So, once again, what's the problem?

Help me out. What am I missing?

- Chris