Re: A Normalization Question

> > No, the above is an example of carrying out the wrong steps to achieve
> > the desired goal.
>
> ANY anomalies can be prevented by always carrying out
> the right steps to achieve the desired goal.

True, but if changing one and not the other(s) causes an update anomaly, this is sufficient to prove the thing was a duplicate/redundant in the context of a db.

> > If we desire to only rename person X to 'browne', the process is to
> > see if 'browne' already exists, if not, create 'browne', then unrelate
> > X from 'brown' and re-relate to 'browne'. (XDb1 does this when user
> > edits the person named 'brown')
>
> You're describing a system where you have potential
> update anomalies,

Having duplicate/redundant 'brown' is a setup for update anomalies. Not having duplicate/redundant 'brown' is not.

> software that requires extra logic, code and overhead to work around them as
> though they were a good thing.

"Software that requires extra logic, code and overhead to work around" is irrelevant to 'brown', 'brown', 'brown' being redundant. Received on Sat Jul 17 2004 - 18:09:51 CDT