TomThomson (9/15/2014)
Jeff Moden (9/13/2014)
I do have problems making developers understand such things so I invented the much simpler "DBPC" form of normalization. I simply explain that if I have to search for non-key attribute columns in multiple tables just to make (for example) a name change then "Death By Pork Chops" may be in their immediate future.:-PI still think (as I told you nearly four years ago) that threats of Torture By Kippered Herring is more effective (or, at least, less wasteful) than DBPC. After applying DBPC the developer is dead and can never do any useful development. While this is appropriate for many developers, there are also many who are redeemable, and TPKH does allow them, if they are capable, to redeem themselves. Of course multiple applications of TPKH will deliver the desired Darwinian effect, without that TPKH would be grossly inadequate. Even if the offending developer survives multiple applications he will be in no condition to reproduce, since to do so generally requires the cooperation of a person of the opposite gender which is unlikely to be forthcoming for a developer who is strongly redolent of red or orange fish.
Edit: Of course you and I are both politically incorrect: we both want to normalise the developers instead of being stuck with normalising their schemas after they have got it wrong. I'm sure the ANSPID and the BNSPID don't approve of us. (That's the American and the British NSPID - the infamous National Societies for the Preservation of Incompetent Developers.)
Heh... we should get together, Tom. Rumor has it that kippered herring makes a wicked buzzing sound when fired from a 3 band pork chop launcher especially when launched on the oblique.
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.