Michael Kay scripsit:
> On the contrary, I think it applies quite strongly! Second normal form is
> telling us to attach attributes to the objects to which they properly apply,
> for example you don't store the name of the publisher as part of the book
> record, because it doesn't depend on the whole ISBN, it only depends on part
> of the ISBN. (Of course, no-one actually applies this rule in practice, but
> that's another matter.)
In fact, the publisher-prefix part of the ISBN has been reused in certain
cases, so in fact the publisher does depend on the whole ISBN. Specialty
publishers with just a few books (like the Logical Language Group,
http://www.lojban.org) get assigned ISBNs a few at a time (we have published
one book so far and have 9 ISBN's left, IIRC).
--
John Cowan <> http://www.reutershealth.com
I amar prestar aen, han mathon ne nen, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
han mathon ne chae, a han noston ne 'wilith. --Galadriel, _LOTR:FOTR_
