From: RP
To: Editor
I thought you might enjoy some laughably stupid quotes from
Microsoft Press's book ANALYZING REQUIREMENTS & DEFINING .NET SOLUTION
ARCHITECTURES - EXAM 70-300:
Records in a relational database can be manipulated by using
Extensible Markup Language (XML)."
(SQL
Server is claimed to be an RDBMS!) Typically, you work towards achieving
the third normal form, because it is a compromise between too little
normalization and too much … Denormalization is the process of reversing
normalization to generate tables with more fields that require fewer joins. (Not
quite in line with the book's earlier statement: "Related items of
data can be retrieved efficiently by using Structured Query Language (SQL),
regardless of whether the items are stored in one table or many tables.
although the author could say this still allows for different
degrees of efficiency.)
The book does point out that denormalization leads to
"more redundant" data", "possibly duplicating data",
and "data [getting] out of synchronization", but considers these
risks acceptable, and claims that "data that is over-normalized can cause
performance issues" - of course they don't want to admit that the
fault lies with the product.
There is some interesting illogicality elsewhere in the book
too:
A component whose services are closely related is said to have
high cohesion ... Ineffective types of cohesion include the following: ...
Coincidental: Operations are grouped without any apparent relationship.
How can lack of any relationship be a form of cohesion, if a
high level of cohesion means a close relationship?
Ed. Comment: Any
would be superfluous. I reiterate my
warning that vendors are the worst source of education—as distinct from
training--because they are as uninterested in, and ignorant of data fundamentals
as users who, therefore, are not in position to realize that they--the
users--are being misled and confused (for more Microsoft nonsense see Comments on An Interview with Jim Gray and Fish Rotting from the Head: An Old Interview
with Bill Gates) As long as users do not get their foundational
knowledge prior to product/vendor information, they can be sold any bill
of goods, and they are.
Posted
08/17/03
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