Skip to content

Expand normalization.md to the book's three-lens treatment #219

Description

@dimitri-yatsenko

explanation/normalization.md is workflow-only (~260 lines). The book's normalization chapter (30-design/055-normalization.ipynb) is much richer; several core ideas are missing from the docs:

  • The three normalization lenses (Codd mathematical / Chen entity / DataJoint workflow) and their convergence on the same schema.
  • A classical 1NF / 2NF / 3NF baseline + functional dependencies — without it, the repeated "workflow normalization is stricter than 3NF" claim has no referent.
  • The Entity Normalization Principle — attributes describe the entity directly, completely, non-optionally — including relationship-sets-as-entities. (Docs currently substitute a narrower "Intrinsic Attributes Principle.")
  • The e-commerce Order example — a table that passes 3NF and entity normalization yet fails workflow normalization (NULLs + UPDATEs). The clearest, domain-neutral motivator; docs use only mouse/cage.
  • The UPDATE-as-design-smell heuristic ("can this be pure INSERT + DELETE?") in the explanation tier (currently only in a reference spec).
  • The tidy-data mapping (Wickham → 1NF + entity normalization).

Proposal: expand normalization.md into the three-lens structure; keep the existing (strong) mouse/cage example as the DataJoint worked example.

From an internal datajoint-book → docs coverage review (priority P3).

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

No one assigned

    Labels

    documentationImprovements or additions to documentationenhancementNew feature or request

    Type

    No type

    Fields

    No fields configured for issues without a type.

    Projects

    No projects

    Milestone

    No milestone

    Relationships

    None yet

    Development

    No branches or pull requests

    Issue actions