=?Utf-8?B?RGF2ZSBG?= wrote in
:

My take: the db should be normalized.

His take: the db doesn't need to be normalized because it is not being
queried daily.

It depends on how much you care about internal inconsistencies and data
integrity. R theory is about having data "correct" -- in other words,
there are no situations where ACME's hometown could be Cincinatti in one
record and London in another.

It's possible that the repository is only being fed high-quality cleaned
data and that data integrity problems have been dealt with in another
way. In that case, your consultant would argue that the extra storage
space and disk accesses required by an R database would not be efficient.

On the other hand, you view might be that data are inherently unstable
and that only a rigorously designed, mathematically-verifiable, fully
normal design can keep them from degenerating into a pile of dog-doos.
And you are prepared to pay for the comfort of that knowledge.

It's got bugger-all to do with daily querying, though!

Hope that helps


Tim F