Re: object algebra

"Neo" <neo55592_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:4b45d3ad.0402272225.da400cf_at_posting.google.com...
> > I'm still trying to figure out what you mean by normalization. You've
> > said something about atomic symbols, but I still don't have a procedure
> > to determine whether a design is normalized in your eyes or not.
>
> Normalization: The process of replacing duplicates things with a
> reference to the original thing.
>
> For example, given "john isa person" and "john obeys army", one
> observes that the "john" in the second sentence is a duplicate of
> "john" in the first sentence. Using the means provided by your system,
> the second sentence should be stored as "->john obeys army".
>
> Another example, given "bob" one observes that the second "b" is a
> duplicate of the first "b" and therefore should be normalized as
> "bo->b". I don't want you to normalized this far, even though Ex076
> is.
>
<snip>
Begging your pardon, but the second b has nothing to do with the first b. If you know the name is Bob, then the example you cite is trivial since Bob is an irreducible superkey.

So what about other names that start with Bo? Bonny, perhaps? We can probably come up with a better example of a functional dependency.

• Dan