1. Quote of the Week
Table (n.) – a collection of information (data?) describing a population of entities which possess some common characteristics, called attributes. Tables are the building block of relational databases. Tables must generally be “normalized,” at least to 1NF. That may be an appropriate way to think of databases when implemented in a modern day DBMS. However, it is not the way the world thinks logically. People have no problem with commonly occurring phenomena such as:
* A multi-valued attribute, e.g., an Employee possesses multiple Skills.
* Many-to-many (M:N) relationships, e.g., as between Employees and Projects
* A relationship with attributes
--Gordon Everest, Recognizing and Treating Tableitis