title: Database Design Best Practices
body: <p>I am pretty well versed with SQL Server, MySQL, Oracle etc but putting these Database products aside, is there a resource that will help me design relational databases well? Is there something like patterns or best practices for database design?</p>
  
  <p>I have seen a few times that database is often not scalable; people have personal preferences with keeping columns like isChecked column which is boolean in nature but stored as Char(1) with values like 'Y' and 'N' instead of 0 and 1 which to me sounds better. Ways not to commit common mistakes while doing database design?</p>
  
  <p>Links to books or articles will be highly appreciated.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks in advance.</p>