- Each table must have a primary key.
- In most cases it should be an IDENTITY column named ID.
- Normalize data to third normal form.
- Do not compromise on performance to reach third normal form. Sometimes, a little de-normalization results in better performance.
- Do not use TEXT as a data type; use the maximum allowed characters of VARCHAR instead.
- In VARCHAR data columns, do not default to NULL; use an empty string instead.
- Columns with default values should not allow NULLs.
- As much as possible, create stored procedures on the same database as the main tables they will be accessing.
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