Jamie Collins wrote:
Craig Alexander Morrison wrote:
The best and most practical advice is learn how to normalise your data

I am of the opinion that 'Learn how to normalise your data' falls some
way short of the most practical advice. Actually, I consider it a
non-answer, right up there with 'Learn how to do DBMS design' and
'Learn how to program'.

In the interest of fairness, I trawled fir the ten most recent replies
mentioning normalization (although I admit to saving the best one until
last). Although none were very specific (would you believe it wasn't
until the eleventh that 3NF was name-checked g?), there are not as
many 'cringers' as I was expecting:

"a more normalized structure"

"isn't normalized"

"in need of normalization"

"Keep it well-normalized"

"properly normalized"

"a different normalized format"

"NOT the best normalized method"

"good normalization"

"a normalized union query"

"is not strictly normalized"

"search for normalisation on the web and you'll find the rules which
should be applied to a database in order to make it relational"