Overnormalization

Question

When would a database design be described as overnormalized? Is this characterization an absolute one? Or is it dependent on the way it is used in the application? Thanks.

Answer 1

A lot of people are talking about performance. I think a key issue is flexibility. In general, the more normalized your database, the more flexible it is.

We currently use an "over-normalized" database because, in our operating environment, client requirements change on a monthly basis. By "over-normalizing" we can adopt our software accordingly, without changing the database structure.