Heath Normal Form

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Heath Normal Form

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martin.whitton SSCrazy Points: 2577 More actions · Answer 1

L' Eomot Inversé (11/14/2011)

martin.whitton (11/14/2011)

paul s-306273 (11/14/2011)

......

I don't for a moment imagine that knowing that Chris Date suggested that Heath Normal Form night be a more suitable name than Boyce-Codd Normal Form would help anyone in their work (unless perhaps their work was writing a book about the history of relation theory development in the early years). But a lot of people find this kind of trivia fun, and there's always the hope that some people will read up either the papers referenced in the explanation or some of the things they find when googling for an answer and learn something useful from that.

Those are valid points, Tom.

I'm quite happy to see questions like this appear from time to time; they just don't suit me personally.

And maybe I'm just a little bit grumpy today because I lost my 2 points!

Hugo Kornelis SSC Guru Points: 64748 More actions · Answer 2

martin.whitton (11/14/2011)

However, the fact that Hugo admits to having to Google this one might suggest that this question is a little on the esoteric side, and that you could be quite good at your job without knowing or caring about the answer!

I think that if "you could be quite good at your job without knowing or caring about the answer" is the measure for the QotD, then we could remove, depending on the exact job people are doing, somewhere between 80-90% of all questions.

I never use BI in my work. Yet, I like QotD questions about BI, because they force me to look into technology I normally don't use, and help me learn. I also like trivia questions like this one, because I like to know a bit more than just the bare technical knowledge my job requires - and I also hope that this question will contribute a bit to making the issue and importance of normalization more well-known.

Hugo Kornelis, SQL Server/Data Platform MVP (2006-2016)
Visit my SQL Server blog: https://sqlserverfast.com/blog/
SQL Server Execution Plan Reference: https://sqlserverfast.com/epr/

Chris Houghton SSCrazy Points: 2497 More actions · Answer 3

Chris Houghton

SSCrazy

Points: 2497

November 14, 2011 at 3:54 am

#1407037

My powers of guess work are strong today 🙂

rfr.ferrari SSCertifiable Points: 6879 More actions · Answer 4

rfr.ferrari

SSCertifiable

Points: 6879

November 14, 2011 at 4:06 am

#1407042

thanks for the question, Tom!!!!!

[font="Times New Roman"]rfr.ferrari[/font]
DBA - SQL Server 2008
MCITP | MCTS

remember is live or suffer twice!
the period you fastest growing is the most difficult period of your life!

mtassin SSC-Insane Points: 23099 More actions · Answer 5

Hugo Kornelis (11/14/2011)

martin.whitton (11/14/2011)

I never use BI in my work. Yet, I like QotD questions about BI, because they force me to look into technology I normally don't use, and help me learn. I also like trivia questions like this one, because I like to know a bit more than just the bare technical knowledge my job requires - and I also hope that this question will contribute a bit to making the issue and importance of normalization more well-known.

I could surprise you here. After setting up my scripts to capture wait state differentials from my production server. I had to bumble my way through PowerPivot to develop some nice quick and easy to use dashboards on the BI server so I could analyze them easily and simply.

If I didn't feel like a bumbling PowerPivot fool, I think I'd write a PowerPivot article for SSC. Some of the rest of the BI stuff from MS can be wonky (Report Models/Report Builder amaze me at how stupid some of the parts of them work compared to something like Crystal Reports, and SSAS makes me scream when I want to do something that seems to be relatively simple and leaves me befuddled), but PowerPivot is a nice simple and powerful tool (I guess until I want to calculate a median, since it's an SSAS derivative that will likely cause me to start the screaming fest all over again).

--Mark Tassin
MCITP - SQL Server DBA
Proud member of the Anti-RBAR alliance.
For help with Performance click this link[/url]
For tips on how to post your problems[/url]

SanDroid SSChampion Points: 10068 More actions · Answer 6

SanDroid

SSChampion

Points: 10068

November 14, 2011 at 7:40 am

#1407160

First let me say interesting question.

I had heard about this in the 80's but had really dropped it along with cars that run on water and the gushot from the grassy knoll uuntiltoday.

Thank you for the reeducation commrad.

BTW: Love the profile picture.

SanDroid SSChampion Points: 10068 More actions · Answer 7

L' Eomot Inversé (11/13/2011)

bitbucket-25253 (11/12/2011)

Without prior knowledge of the QOD author I surmised it was you...

Now a general question for yourself .... in your experiences, around the world, what would you say are the percentage of DBs in 4NF and / or higher (5NF,6NF).

Well, I would guess about 50%, or maybe a bit lower, are in 4NF or higher.

actual counts from experience:

In 2007: system with 9 databases, 7 in 4NF or higher, 1 in 2NF (denormalised Management Information database), 1 not even in 1NF (arrogant and incompetent people who wouldn't follow instructions).

In 2002: system with 3 databases, 1 in BCNF and 2 not even in 1NF.

in 2000: system with 2 DBs, both in 4NF or higher.

Before 2000: most everything 4NF or higher, except MI stuff....

IMHO: I have yet to find a database that comes with any current business software that is fully normalized to 4NF in every physical data structure. After a quick rundown of what is in my current production environment many of them fail simply becuase they store duplicate denormalized historical data in the transactional database for reporting and auditing. We can talk all day long about how this could be done better, faster, stronger.

I wonder how many of us have got anyone to agree to a massive budget needed to fully normalize.

For some reason large scale business applications (like JDE and others) have many decission makers in bussiness believing that any database using under 10 gigabytes of data storage is small and running on systems way bellow Midrange.

😎

OzYbOi d(-_-)b SSCarpal Tunnel Points: 4054 More actions · Answer 8

OzYbOi d(-_-)b

SSCarpal Tunnel

Points: 4054

November 14, 2011 at 8:41 am

#1407226

Thanks for the question Tom. 🙂

TomThomson SSC Guru Points: 104773 More actions · Answer 9

SanDroid (11/14/2011)

IMHO: I have yet to find a database that comes with any current business software that is fully normalized to 4NF in every physical data structure. After a quick rundown of what is in my current production environment many of them fail simply becuase they store duplicate denormalized historical data in the transactional database for reporting and auditing. We can talk all day long about how this could be done better, faster, stronger.

Actually I would expect historical data held for reporting to be denormalised, but I would also expect it to be in a separate MI database (I'm a dinosaur - I haven't learnt to type BI instead of MI). But the stuff for audit should be the stuff that was generated in real time by the real transaction so quite separate from reporting data.

I wonder how many of us have got anyone to agree to a massive budget needed to fully normalize.

Once a system that should be normalised has been built unnormalised, no one has budget to do proper normalisation until shortly after the brown stuff meets the blades.

Tom