More Rows or More Columns ?

Question

I have a table (a form) where 50 attributes have to be filled for each id. There may be some extra attributes be added or removed in this form.
Which is better
1) Going with more columns (50+) less rows.
2) Going with less columns and more rows.
I am more inclined towards more rows because of the main disadvantage of adding and removing the columns.
Any descriptive answer will be of good help (any reference will also do good)

Answer 1

CP wrote:
Can you please elaborate on this. I have tried 2NF before but not 3NF.It actually sounds as though you are trying to design your database using some form of Entity Attribute Value (EAV) model, where you store a row for each attribute of an entity.
e.g.
+-----------+--------------+-----------------------+
| Entity_ID | Attribute_ID | Attribute Value       |
+-----------+--------------+-----------------------+
|         1 |            1 | Mr.                   |
|         1 |            2 | John                  |
|         1 |            3 | Smith                 |
|         2 |            1 | Mr.                   |
|         2 |            2 | Joe                   |
|         2 |            3 | Bloggs                |
|         3 |            1 | Mrs                   |
|         3 |            2 | Tiggy                 |
|         3 |            3 | Winkle                |
+-----------+--------------+-----------------------+This apparently makes for a very flexible data model because, if you need to add more attributes for an entity, we can just assign another Attribute_ID for this new attribute (e.g. 4 for a persons date of birth) and then store rows with data for those attributes.
The problem with this however is that it is not using a relational database in the best way, and leads to major overheads in programming and consildating the data back to the single entity. EAV models have very few valid uses, and have been tried by many in the past to create "generic" or "flexible" database designs, typcially ending in disaster.
Here's a good story to illustrate a company that had a developer create them an EAV model database...
http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/opinion-pieces/bad-carma/
The proper design for a database would put all the attributes for an entity as individual columns on a single row. The required attributes should be known about at design time so, in most cases, there shouldn't be much need later on to add new attributes, and if there is, it's usually easy enough to add a new column to the table to cater for it, or in some cases create another relational table store the additional attribute(s) (especially if there is several attributes to be added). This is the nature of 3rd normal form (3NF)...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_normal_form