From: Bryn Rhodes (Alphora)

To: Editor

 

Found this on comp.databases.theory, just about lost my lunch on this one:

 

Question: Could you point me to any good online resources for normalisation? Been searching the web, but can't find much.  If there isn't anything decent online, do you have any book recommendations?

 

John Baker: O'Reilly has a book on Access called Access Database Design & Programming, 3rd Edition.  I haven't read it, but if you go to this address: http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/accessdata3/ There is a description and also a link to a sample chapter. The sample  chapter happens to be on database design and normalization. So, you  could read the sample chapter to get some info on what you're looking  for, and if you happen to find it helpful and well written then you know  what book to buy.

 

Chris Belcher: The Book I am reading, "Using Microsoft Access 2000" (Que, 1999) refers to E.F. Codd's "Further Normalization of the Relational Model" paper as a good source. It described the first 3 of 5 "Normal Forms".  While searching for E.F. Codd I ran across these articles that might be of help.

 

Bernard Peek (DBA, Manager, Trainer & Author): When I was working on a CASE tool we thought that there was little point in going beyond third normal form.

 

What business does this guy have writing a CASE tool if he doesn't know much about normalizing beyond third normal form?

 

 

From: Fabian Pascal

To: Bryn Rhodes

 

Anybody who designs products these days knows nothing. They learn "the american way", by doing. They are unaware that there is something called foundation knowledge. There is only experience and tools, anything else is “theory” and “useless”.

 

This particular case, as these things go, is pretty mild. Here's a nicer quote I posted a while ago:

 

JPT: Have your original ideas about O/R mapping changed much since you embarked on this project?

GK: I went into this knowing very little about ORM, and even very little about databases. One of my first tasks was to go out and buy a book to learn SQL properly. All my understanding of the problem comes from what our users have taught us over the last two years.

--The Interview: Gavin King, Hibernate, http://www.javaperformancetuning.com

 

There is poetic justice, though. Check out the attached article I just finished: the US empire is decaying fast.

 

Incidentally, you could have referred him to our PRACTICAL DATABASE FOUNDATION papers:

 

06/07/03 #1: WHAT FIRST NORMAL FORM REALLY MEANS, Date

02/13/04 #2: WHAT FIRST NORMAL FORM MEANS NOT, Pascal

04/23/04 #6: THE COSTLY ILLUSION: NORMALIZATION, INTEGRITY AND PERFORMANCE, Pascal

 

although I doubt that he would have purchased anything when he can get free stuff and cannot tell the difference between the right thing and crap.

 

 

Posted: 09/24/04