[Tagging] football or soccer ?

[Anthony]

> On Thu, Jul 1, 2010 at 8:08 AM, John F. Eldredge <john at jfeldredge.com>
> wrote:
>> In fact, the technique of having the user select from a list of words, but
>> actually storing the value as an arbitrary ID (generally numeric), is the
>> recommended technique in database design.  It is called "normalizing the
>> database".

> On 01/07/2010 15:25, Anthony wrote:
> Umm...no.  At least, not exactly.  If a single column is independent from
> other columns, it is not necessary for normalization to store it as an
> arbitrary ID.  (For example, if you have a database table containing a
> driver's license number, date of birth, and hair color, you generally
> wouldn't store the hair color as an arbitrary ID and then have a separate
> table to look up the hair color.  It certainly isn't necessary for
> normalization.  Assuming driver's license number is your primary key, hair
> color is a fact about the key, the whole key, and nothing but the key.)

On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 4:38 AM, Colin Smale <colin.smale at xs4all.nl> wrote:
> Actually that would be exactly what you would do, assuming you want the list
> of colours to be controlled and finite.

No it isn't.  If I wanted the list of colors to be controlled and
finite I'd use a check constraint.

> Which DBMS do you call crappy and which do you call good?

Sorry, not going to play that game.