Database Design for Mere Mortals™: A Hands-On Guide to Relational Database Design, Second Edition

Benefits of Good Design

The time you invest in designing a sound database structure is time well spent. Good design saves you time in the long run because you do not have to constantly revamp a quickly and poorly designed structure. You gain the following benefits when you apply good design techniques:

• The database structure is easy to modify and maintain. Modifications you make to a field or table will not adversely affect other fields or tables in the database.

• The data is easy to modify. Changes you make to the value of a given field in a table will not adversely affect the values of other fields within the table. Furthermore, a well-designed database keeps duplicate fields to an absolute minimum, so you typically modify a particular ...