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From: pavlov@canisius.UUCP (Greg Pavlov)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Balancing Normalization with Performance
Message-ID: <3043@canisius.UUCP>
Date: 29 Nov 90 14:57:43 GMT
References: <1092@cortex.med.jhu.edu> <1990Nov20.190315.13505@informix.com> <355@6sigma.UUCP>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Canisius College, Buffalo N.Y. 14208
Lines: 21

In article <355@6sigma.UUCP>, zuker@6sigma.UUCP (Hunter Zuker) writes:
> Aaron Watters writes:
> 
>ALTERNATIVELY there is the phenomenon of the UNJUSTIFIED
>NORMALIZATION.  Where we make use of an assumption such as
>   Persons only have one address.
>   Husband's last name determines Wife's last name.
>   etcetera.  In this case the normalization may DISALLOW information
>   that a user may later want to insert into the database.  This
>   is another issue.			
> 
  These are "unjustified" only in the sense that there was no justification
  for the DBA/designer to use these assumptions in the first place.  The
  last time I had to set up a data base that pertained to family units, I
  could not make any asumptions about shared last names, addresses, telephones,
  etc.  E.g., I had to take into account instances such as a family with four
  children where only three of the members had the same last name (the wife and
  two of the children).  The Eisenhower era ended 30 years ago.

  greg pavlov, fstrf, amherst, ny
  pavlov@stewart.fstrf.org