Normalization
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How many here normalize their databases?
Bastard Programmer from Hell :suss: "If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.
During design, I normalize to the optimum end, the denormalize where necessary for performance. I've been following that process since I started in databases back in the late 80s. Of equal importance is knowing what to index on, and how to keep indexing and PK-FK relationships from getting out of hand to where performance and supportability become a problem.
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honey the codewitch wrote:
Rather than doing JOINs in the database he was doing them in PHP on the webserver
I had a colleague like that once. He was transferring two 100G entries tables (+-50 columns each) to PHP to do joins using for loops. It was killing the server and taking almost a week to process. The boss only noticed when he requested a new, more powerful server (our server was brand new). Boss told me to converted it to SQL and it started taking less than an hour to do the same join ;P That colleague quit the project soon after that.
ElectronProgrammer wrote:
That colleague quit the project soon after that.
Did he fall, or was he pushed? :-\
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
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That's true, and given the amount of space to work with that we have these days, and how good databases are at doing batch data conversion and such, there really isn't a good reason to avoid redundant data if it makes things easier or more efficient. You just have to be careful not to go crazy with it, and you have to keep in mind that it can make your database more "brittle" because its more fields that need to be proofed/validated for correctness. Keeping redundant data in sync is a chore unto itself. But yes yes yes to this. Redundant data is okay, when it serves a purpose, often for performance or integration purposes it is The Right Way(TM) to do things. And if I'm wrong then I got paid a whole lot of money to be wrong, and a lot of people happy with how wrong I was. :laugh:
Real programmers use butterflies
But don't forget what Edsger Dijstra once said: If you say the same thing twice, you will contradict yourself.
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ElectronProgrammer wrote:
That colleague quit the project soon after that.
Did he fall, or was he pushed? :-\
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows. -- 6079 Smith W.
He fell. It wasn't his only mistake. I tried to give him an hand but he took the arm to harm (he had a PhD and I had a licenciate degree*). I would rather have him there than ending overworked and underpaid as I did. I guess the corporate reality train was to heavy for him :sigh: * That degree is one below masters and one above bachelor in pre-bologna process which was my case
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But don't forget what Edsger Dijstra once said: If you say the same thing twice, you will contradict yourself.
Not if you say it properly. *hides*
Real programmers use butterflies
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Eddy Vluggen wrote:
Math.
NoMATH (for clarity, Not Only Math) :rolleyes: Actually, that math was failing with big enough datasets, which is why NoSQL was (re-)invented. So the right way to do things went from "normalize everything" to "denormalize a good bunch." We've seen the opposite happen to peanut butter.
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When you're talking about redundant storage, are you referring to data aggregated from single points of origin or an uncontrolled mess?
Wrong is evil and must be defeated. - Jeff Ello
And some redundancy is not really redundant, it is the historical context that needs to be saved. The invoice earlier is a good example. If the company changes its name or moves it’s HQ, you do not want the invoice to update. The best part is when there are M/A and divestitures among your client base. At a high enough altitude, it looks like a game of Life cellular generational display.
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I find No SQL kind of funny as it is one of those cyclic patterns. In the same vein with centralized versus distributed.
Before SQL, which didn't become popular until the 80's, there was only not SQL :rolleyes:
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