Dave Aronson wrote: > On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 10:18, Robert Walker <li...@ruby-forum.com> > wrote: > >> For more details see: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_normal_form#Repeating_groups > > I had considered suggesting going with a complete separate table of > names, containing a person_id (or in this use-case, fullname_id), > sequence number, and string, but that seemed like overkill. It would > be "normal", but IMHO HAGNI. :-)
I definitely agree that there are cases where breaking normalization for other gains is desirable. I just don't completely agree that this is one of those cases. In this case following out to 3NF is beneficial. It would provide for a more flexible and more elegant design. It will also simplify the design for asking more "interesting" questions like, "Give me a list of all names that have Dale as a middle name." Maybe questions like that aren't a concern now, but breaking normal forms in this case will make questions like that more difficult (and complex) to ask later if the need arises. Why "build in" known limitations when there is no known reasons for do so? I understand the desire for simple design, but not at the cost of good design. Not when there's no clear reason to avoid the better design. -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Ruby on Rails: Talk" group. To post to this group, send email to rubyonrails-t...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rubyonrails-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rubyonrails-talk?hl=en.
