Newbie - what's all this BCNF stuff anyway?

Hi, I've been putting together some relational DBs for use in small websites. Some of these DBs even got kinda complex. After I built a few and implemented successful applications driven by them, I began thinking I was the man. Then I found this newsgroup.

So, please excuse my ignorance, but I'm seeing all these recent posts about BCNF and 3nf, and I'm all confused. My question is: why BCNF? I thought 3nf (or 4nf, or 5nf) was the ultimate goal. I've been assigning auto-increment primary keys like crazy in every table I've created and using them for all relationships. What's the practical (or real-world) application of BCNF over 3nf?

Humble thanks,
Seth Received on Mon Nov 18 2002 - 14:57:17 CST