[ic] database table redesign

[Dan Browning]

At 10:56 AM 4/4/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>I was wondering if anyone has ever thought of redesigning the interchange 
>table designs? They don't appear to be well normalized.
>I understand that IC can run on anything from text files to rdbms, so I 
>was wondering if the tables aren't normalized because of a limitation due 
>to the text or dbm tables or because it would just be too large a project. 
>If anyone has any insight into how big a project this would be to really 
>clean up the table designs for optimial usage by an rdbms like
>Oracle I would be interested in hearing from you.

Hello Jason, it's a pleasure to have you on the list.  I hope you'll excuse 
my asking you to get up to speed with these threads:

http://www.icdevgroup.org/pipermail/interchange-users/2001-April/006781.html

http://www.icdevgroup.org/pipermail/interchange-users/2002-July/023499.html

My own position is:

The database is the way it is because it is

  * Easy (e.g. storing the address information in 'transactions' allows the 
'historical' information to stick around very easily).

  * Supported by all db types

However, we would be happy to receive any of your contributions toward a 
"foundation-3NF" template.  (Remember, we as developers suffer from 
l***ness, impatience, and hubris).

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