When I found myself heading down the data analysis, modelling, and administration path early in my career (late 1970s), I would spend time in technical bookstores looking for texts to help me on my way.
I had 4 things to check in deciding if a book was worth my while.
By the end of the 1980s, I had given up on finding an useful book.
This article covers the second-highest item on my list.
Subsequent posts will cover the 3rd and 4th items.
The 4th, and final, post will address the most important item on my list, something which I’m astonished has not received a lot more attention.
Or even any attention at all, from my experience to this day.
But I start with the poor treatment of Fifth Normal Form (5NF).
The previous post discussed the evolution of the current architecture on the right of this diagram from what previously existed on the left:
3-Tier: Closed Versus Open Technology
and asked the question of whether that has been appropriate.
I do have views on that.
But I’m only going to focus on the area in which - after the best part of 40 years doing data analysis, modelling, and administration - I feel particularly qualified to have an opinion.
My second early-career formative experience came while spending a week advising an organisation on a data strategy. To illustrate normalization, we looked at a small, self-contained project which they had in the design phase. Their data model had 5-6 tables. Over a couple of days of discussion, we restructured it into around 20 tables.
At the end they acknowledged the reasons for all the tables, while still being somewhat perplexed at the idea of so many tables for such a small project.
Some months later I was talking to someone from the organisation, and asked about that project. The person had some interesting observations.
