>>I understand NULLS have a special purpose... but I think I'm starting to abuse it. For example, if we have a text comments area that saves to a varchar field, would it be proper to use NULL if the user left the text area blank, or would it be proper to use a blank string?
>
>The NULLs require special handling in queries and in front end. My rule is not to use NULLs unless it's necessary:
>- In datetime columns
>- Foreign keys
>- Any other case where NULL is significant (represents absence of data or N/A).

Thank you for your input. How do you hande "0" vs. nothing in a numeric field (or is this one of the special instances)?