IMHO, etc. Always start with a *fully* (ok, by fully I mean 3rd normal form...mainly because I still don't fully understand 4th and don't even pretend to understand 5th) normalized design. You can always denormalize for speed but it's real hard to normalize once you are in production.
Vocal range deserves a 'domainTable' of it's own. vocalRangeType --- vocalRangeTypeID === description === product then has vocalRangeTypeID as a FK. Nothing wrong with a table that is just a bunch of FKs to other tables. YMMV, HTH, =C= * * Cal Evans * Stay plugged into your audience. * http://www.christianperformer.com * -----Original Message----- From: David T-G [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, January 14, 2003 5:49 PM To: mysql users Subject: when to normalize out to a table -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hi, all -- I wonder if there's a best-practice line of when to bother to normalize data out to a table. Certainly I wouldn't want to have a table of integers and have a column in another table point into it :-) and almost certainly I'd want to point out to a table of personnel rather than list the info -- even just the name -- in the table of other info. Well, for the music catalog I've started I have to track the vocal range of the piece. I only have five values (high, medium high, medium, medium low, low) and I could at least use 5 logical abbreviations (HH, MH, MM, ML, LL), and I might even come up with 5 single-letter abbreviations that would thus be exactly as efficient as going out to another table via a smallint pointer -- and yet I wouldn't ever have to dereference to see what range I meant. How does one decide what to do in a grey area of this sort -- in this situation, for example? ;-) TIA & HAND mysql query, :-D - -- David T-G * There is too much animal courage in (play) [EMAIL PROTECTED] * society and not sufficient moral courage. (work) [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Mary Baker Eddy, "Science and Health" http://justpickone.org/davidtg/ Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg! -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.7 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE+JKHwGb7uCXufRwARApErAJ4r4DyzeSJVt4+/I7H7isVd77zUQQCg0igD vabIu29v+Jm5s0HOMaGnsLE= =MRq6 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php --------------------------------------------------------------------- Before posting, please check: http://www.mysql.com/manual.php (the manual) http://lists.mysql.com/ (the list archive) To request this thread, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, e-mail <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Trouble unsubscribing? Try: http://lists.mysql.com/php/unsubscribe.php
