Things don't have to be that difficult.  Just make lookup fields in the main
table and it is all seamless.

On 6/18/09 1:43 AM, in article
78DEFE65-58B5-447C-BD29-C2EDA4663D66@news.elevatesoft.com, "Roy Lambert"
<roy.lambert@skynet.co.uk> wrote:

> David
>
>> Oh no, no, no. Get rid of most of those string fields. Size, Group, and
>> both colors should all be integers referencing other tables.
>
> That is normalisation gone berserk. It will not make things simpler later but
> more complex. Joins or calculated fields will be required to display data in
> human comprehensible form (unless their staff become used to colour 47 rather
> than red). In a big complex database where the data can be manipulated by many
> programs there may (note I say may not will) be some justification for this
> approach but in a small company which isn't massively IT sophisticated its
> neither required nor suitable.
>
> Roy Lambert

Roy,

I completely agree, except perhaps for the fact that I tend to give more
importance to normalization than to the immediate speed optimization.
But, as you said, one size does not fit all

--
Fernando Dias
[Team Elevate]