Posted by Ed Murphy on 02/25/07 02:56

--CELKO-- wrote:

>>> Emin's question was apparently of a generic nature, and his table was just an example. <<
>
> Because good specs are important; because there is no such thing as a
> "generic table"; because we need to know if the FDs would allow that
> table to be split like he was trying to do.
>
>>> There is no reason to call it CheeseID, AppleID, or WhateverID; that would only distract attention from what the example is intended to discuss. <<
>
> So, how do you find the FDs and make a rational decision about this
> nameless table? If he had given us real-world names, then we could
> guess. What we had was (id -> name; id -> salary) or (id -> name;
> name -> salary) or ((name,salary)-> id) or etc.
>
> If we keep giving these newbies kludges instead of showing them that
> their questions are not properly formed, then they are going think
> what they are doing is just fine and never learn RDBMS.

You need a good cop and a bad cop. Except in Alpha Complex, where
the positions have been combined due to budgetary restraints. :)

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