Re: Rookie asks about "Normalization"

From: Steve Butler <sbut-is_at_seatimes.com>
Date: 1995/12/26
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.91.951226132604.28190D-100000_at_seatimes>#1/1

On Fri, 22 Dec 1995, EndUser wrote:

> never heard of 4ND and 5ND, i believe 3NF is the highest

The chart on the wall behind me shows up through 5ND. In C. J. Date's book on Database Theory you will read about 8ND (and possibly higher depending on which edition you find).

> set at a time processing is also a bogus term. you will see
> better performance if you can avoid joins, that is, referencing

That's exactly what SET operators are all about. Doing operations to avoid the expensive JOIN. Most folks forget amout the MINUS, INTERSECT, UNION, etc SET OPERATIONS. These are many times faster than some complex join to determine the same information.

> In article <173293_at_653.chatlink.com>, Rubenm_at_sys653.chatlink.com wrote:
>
> > normalizing your database is only half of the task. you need to make
> > sure that your SQL statements are processing set-at-a-time (set
> > processing). and not R.A.T.s (record at a time). i've seen a lot of
> > people use SQL regardless of the platform (Oracle, DB2, Sybase,
> > Informix, etc.) and complain and blame the following in this order...
> > first the hardwar vendor.. then the database vendor... but never the
> > database designer and programmer.

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All standard and non-standard disclaimers apply. All other sources are annonymous. Received on Tue Dec 26 1995 - 00:00:00 CET