Is database normalization still necessary?

Question

Is database normalization still \"the thing?\"

When I studied during a databases course we were taught all levels of normalization and were said that we must always

Answer 1

A rule of thumb "JOIN's are Expensive on Processing Power". I use is when creating a database for a project large or small. Tables that hold data such as usernames, addresses etc should always be normalised as they are accessed less recently how you where taught using the kind of examples taught. Now in recent years web2.0 data, apps, mobile services etc. have taken in fact a different type of data which with the abundance of memory code even lower, it can save processing power to keep them all on the same "table" not normalising it.