DEV Community

Geofrey Aduda
Geofrey Aduda

Posted on

Must we use Relational Databases to be A good Developer?

I find it weird when my database is not well Normalized and does not follow the 5 Normalization Rules.

  1. First Normal Form
  2. Second Normal Form
  3. Third Normal Form
  4. BCNF
  5. Fourth Normal Form

What's the way forward? and What has worked for you?

Top comments (3)

Collapse
 
rolivencia profile image
Ramiro Olivencia

Most cases get covered with a 3rd normal form. Having 10 years of coding experience I never required to go beyond 3rd normal form.

Related to the title question, it indeed is a good idea to learn how relational databases work and are implemented, since they're widely used in the software development world.

Collapse
 
vinceramces profile image
Vince Ramces Oliveros • Edited

If you're an experienced developer. you might not need 1NF-2NF and 3.5NF-4NF(Don't complicate things). as 3NF already covers 1..1,0..1,0..*,1..*, and *..* relationships.

As for the question. It is indeed important to use relational database to make your data organized. But I would like to do the UI first before database. We want to know what clients want by providing the basic model before implementing it in the database. I don't want to keep on rewriting the schema every time a client wants a change of mind in their product.

Collapse
 
ali profile image
Daniel Med

To be honest .. it always depends on the type of project ur working on and the number of tables you have there . If it's gonna be a huge relationnel model(more then 10 tables for example) and u have enough of association relationship well Definitely u need to stick to these rules not just because they are rules .. but it's gonna ensure that ur DB is well coherent