Yes, database normalization is good

So InfoQ has collected a few blog posts which ask Data normalization, is it really that good?

Of course it's good, as long as you have requirements which dictate this optimization. If your application requires extremely fast writes, and this can happen in a heavy loaded OLTP system, then data normalization is your savior. If your application requires extremely fast reads, like OLAP systems, then of course data normalization is a killer.

These competing requirements are exactly why you have database systems optimized for either read or write. This is why large systems will maintain an operational system conforming to OLTP principles, and reporting systems conforming to OLAP principles.

Remember, traditional database systems are row oriented. This architecture is itself an optimization for OLTP and normalized data. Read mostly (or read only) systems can be column oriented, which organize the data on disk to optimize reads. For instance, Google's BigTable is an implementation of a column oriented database.

Popular posts from this blog

Lists and arrays in Dart

(This is Part 3 in a series about Dart. Check out Part 2, Function in Dart .) Warning : We expect the Dart libraries to undergo potentially sweeping changes before Dart goes to alpha. This document is relevant as of 2011-12-22. Intro Dart is a "batteries included" effort to help app developers build modern web apps. An important "battery" is the bundled core Dart libraries, providing common and rich functionality. Dart is building a solution for large, complex web apps, and providing well tested, integrated, and common libraries is key to helping a web app developer be more productive out of the box. The Collection libraries are a crucial set of APIs that Dart developers get for free. Much more than simple arrays and maps, the Collection library includes standard ways to filter, iterate, inspect, compose, and sort your data. This post specifically looks at List<E> , Dart's ordered, indexable collection of objects. Aside: The Dart project is lucky
Read more

The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet

The 29 Healthiest Foods on the Planet > The following is a "healthy food hot list" consisting of the 29 food that will give you the biggest nutritional bang for you caloric buck, as well as decrease your risk for deadly illnesses like cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
Read more

Converting Array to List in Scala

Now, this has to have a built-in somewhere in Scala , because it just seems too common. So, how to convert an Array to a List in Scala? Why do I need this? I needed to drop to Java for some functionality, which in this case returns an Array. I wanted to get that Array into a List to practice my functional programming skillz. **Update**: I figured out how to convert Arrays to Lists the Scala way. Turns out it's a piece of cake. val myList = List.fromArray(Array("one", "two", "three")) or val myList = Array("one","two","three").elements.toList The call to elements returns an Iterator , and from there you can convert to a List via toList . Nice. Because my first version wasn't actually tail recursive, what follows is a true tail recursive solution, if I were to implement this by hand. The above, built in mechanism is much better, though. object ArrayUtil { def toList[a](array: Array[a]): List[a] = { d
Read more