Talk:First normal form

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[edit] Primary keys with informational content

A commonly overlooked violation of 1NF is building intelligence into an identifier. The VIN for an automobile is not atomic, besides a sequence number it contains:

1) A code identifying the region where the vehicle was manufactured;

2) A code identifying the manufacturer;

3) Several codes identifying attributes of the vehicle;

4) A code indicating the vehicle model year;

5) A code indicating the plant where the vehicle was made;

Sadly, the VIN is probably the primary key to many tables in existence today. Business persons have a natural tendency to build inteligent keys. There is no mention of this in the main article, it only addresses the classic textbook example of eliminating redundant columns. Mooredc 17:56, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Links to other forms articles

I don't know if this is the right place to add my two pence, but I was wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to have some kind of links in the bottom of the article to move from 1NF to 2NF to 3NF and so on, instead of having to go back to the normalization in order to move from the article on one normal form to the other. ray 17:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Glad I'm not the only person thinking that. I'll get on with that template.--VinceBowdren 18:04, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Obviously, your comment here did get noticed. I've been treating Talk:Database normalization as the place for discussion of this set of articles in general, though I and the others working in this area have all the articles on our watchlists anyway. I don't think its worth setting up a WikiProject for this few linked articles.--VinceBowdren 19:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)