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From: brianc@daedalus (Brian Colfer)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Do you normalize?
Summary: Yes ... and when I don't I pay later...
Keywords: normalization
Message-ID: <2242@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu>
Date: 25 Jul 89 19:58:42 GMT
References: <242@6sigma.UUCP>
Sender: news@cca.ucsf.edu
Reply-To: brianc@daedalus.ucsf.edu (Brian Colfer)
Organization: UCSF Dept. of Lab Med
Lines: 34

In article <242@6sigma.UUCP> blm@6sigma.UUCP (Brian Matthews) writes:
>A few questions for people designing databases.  Do you normalize your
>databases?  If you do normalize, do you do so by hand, or with an
>automated tool?  How far do you take it - 3rd, 4th, or 5th normal form?
>Do you think it was worth the effort?  What DBMS do you use?
>
>If you don't normalize, why not?  Too difficult, or you don't think it's
>worth doing?

1) yes... the more experience I get the more I realize my teachers
were right.
2) By hand... wish I had a tool but I do what I can...
3) 4th most of the time 3rd at least.
4) Yes, my biggest head aches have come from un-normalized data
structures.  For example I inherted a bone marrow tracking
database which was not normalized and we cannot ask the system to 
reliably select all marrows for a particular patient.
5) Informix-4GL and Sybase.

6) When I don't normalize its in prototyping and if the applcation is
used more than just once or twice I always pay the price later in having 
to restructure the application in normalized format.

7) It takes time and thought.

Bite the bullet and NORMALIZE it will save you down the line!
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Brian  | UC San Francisco        | E-mail: USENET, Internet, BITNET
Colfer | Dept. of Lab. Medicine  |...!{ucbvax,uunet}!daedalus.ucsf.edu!brianc
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