> Some initial things.
> Data needs to be kept in 1NF (or 1st-Normal-Form) which is relational > theory speak for "Everything without a 1-to-1 relationship with the key > field in a table, should be in another table". Many reasons for this > (if you care to read up on some RT) but the most simple reason is: We > can make complex extractions from 1NF data tables via JOINs, sub-queries > and the like, but we cannot extract simple information (or de-complicate > it) from convoluted tables. Except for very simple cases, data in first normal form that is not also in third or boyce-codd normal form usually has anomalous update/delete behaviour. Although it may be complicated, one usually wants to normalize to at least third normal. Then you can denormalize (usually for performance reasons) and deal with the anomalies that you (re)introduce through each denormalization step manually.
