Computer proverbs for Fred Shapiro

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Wed, 5 Jun 2002 12:36:19 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Jesse Sheidlower <jester at PANIX.COM> writes:

>Maybe I've just been spending a little too much time on MySQL
>programming lately, but normalization issues are still a huge
>part of database design. I don't think it's at all accurate to
>say that "only serious computer scientists" are concerned with
>it. Fine, regular desktop Access or FileMaker Pro users probably
>aren't concerning themselves with normalization, but it's by no
>means a marginal concern.
>
>Jesse Sheidlower

If you write in SQL, then by today's standards you are a "serious computer scientist."  You are correct that normalization is hardly a "marginal concern", but the hordes of users of ACCESS and its competitors successfully go through life without knowing normalization exists.

Of course I go back to the good ol' days when real men designed network databases---my first exposure to DBMS came on Memorial Day 1971.

     Jim Landau
     systems engineer who never managed to get the title "computer scientist"