Re: By The Dawn's Normal Light

From: Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.comREMOVE>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 20:06:17 -0500
Message-ID: <clpgmr$1iu$1_at_news.netins.net>


"Alfredo Novoa" <alfredo_at_ncs.es> wrote in message news:e4330f45.0410271519.78e85db6_at_posting.google.com...
> "Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.comREMOVE> wrote in message
news:<clob9l$d8b$1_at_news.netins.net>...
>
> > Then you are missing something as on this particular topic (I'm sure not
> > all) I am taking great care to be rigidly mathematical. I've been
working on
> > 1-3NF, ignoring 4-6 until I have figured out what to do with these. It
> > appears to me that 1-3 can be removed completely from the mixture in
favor
> > of BCNF without any loss to the discipline. Do you agree?
>
> 1NF is vacuous, but 2NF and 3NF are interesting to explain and to
> understand the functional dependency issues.
>
> As I said before, when we are designing a database we can forget 2NF
> and 3NF and to start checking BCNF directly. But 2-3NF are not
> vacuous.

Yes, I agree, however, because 1NF is so misunderstood and 2-3 NF are defined in terms of 1NF, that poses a problem.

> > It is even
> > more damaging to keep GWB in office than 1-3NF on the books the way they
are
> > now.
>
> Then we agree on more than one thing, but sometimes it seems to me
> that you use the same surrealist logic as him.

I like reading Date because I can follow where he is logical and where he makes significant jumps (with which I rarely agree). I try to do similarly, although I'm sure not as well, hoping that you can tell when I'm tracking something logically and when I'm basing my ideas on experience and intuition. Experience and intuition are useful for voicing conjecture, but not for proof. If you are unable to tell which is which in my writings, I will try to do better.
cheers! --dawn

>
> Regards
Received on Thu Oct 28 2004 - 03:06:17 CEST

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