From: <operationsengineer1(at)yahoo(dot)com>
> the reason for doing this is that you eliminate
> database dead space (people that don't have faxes
> won't store a null in the db (i think it is null) and
> the db won't have to manage the null values).
correct me if i'm wrong, but i don't think having a completely normalized
datastructure makes always sense. if one would need to query an employee and
having all phone numbers & stuff in one single view, you'll end up having a
huge amount of joins. this is bound to "cost" performance while the "win"
(diskspace) is relatively small.
- thomas