Normalization for Normal People, Part I--The "Language" of the Database, cont'd. AGAIN

Last time, I ended my post with an ambiguous reference to my birth date. I did that to make a couple of points. Well, actually I wanted to reinforce a point I'd made in an earlier blog as well as to introduce one new point.

The reinforced point is that ambiguity in natural languages, like English, is desirable

Normalization for Normal People, Part I--The "Language" of the Database, cont'd.

When you are able to apply a single, unambiguous name to every thing, or "entity" you want to track in your database, you are able to slap a label on each one of them, clearly identifying them as that thing.

To return to our language metaphor, there is one noun that serves as the name for each entity and everyone can clearly state which noun that is

Normalization for Normal People, Part I--The "Language" of the Database

In my last post, I promised to explain my approach to the process of normalization. Today, I'll start that explanation, but before we dive into the normalization process itself, it might be helpful to consider a metaphor about the language, or perhaps, the meta-language, of the database.

Normalization for Normal People--Introduction

As an administrator and regular contributor at http://www.utteraccess.com/, I see, and sometimes answer, a lot of questions asking for help in designing forms, or creating queries or writing functions to enter and display, retrieve or update data. Eight times out of ten, the real, underlying, problem turns out to be inappropriate table design.

What in the World is Access Good For?

A recent exchange of emails with a reader in Australia left me thinking about the role MS Access should have in the average person's "toolkit". Her specific question was, "Should I use Access or Excel for this project?" My gut reaction,