Using generic columns in a database - why?

Question

I'm working for a company where our design team has elected to use "Field1".."Field10" as generic, future purposed columns. I have queried them as to the reason and was told that they are there in case we need them in the future.

Has anybody heard of this practice? Is it wrong for my jaw to drop to the floor when I see something like this?

Answer 1

You are not wrong at all. Not sure what the difficulty is in writing an ADD COLUMN change script.

If these are columns that are not being referenced by the application (and can not used by it at all), then this is the worst kind of YAGNI abuse.

However, if this is a product that will be deployed at maintained by people not in your company, it makes sense to put such place holders (assuming the application "knows" how to access and use them) for future unforeseen expansion.