OpenMusings

In amongst all my grumbling about M359, I’d mentioned that I though moving on to Block 3, and it’s more programming-style SQL content, would make life a whole lot easier.

I started on Block 3 this evening, and it was like a metaphorical weight being lifted from my shoulders – as expected, SQL queries are much more suited to my mindset, and come with the added advantage that, when I’m trying to figure a query out, I can just feed it into the query analyser and see if the results match expectations. That in itself makes the content a lot easier to work with – the relational algebra of Block 2, you had to work though entirely in your head or on paper, with no guarantee that you were following the methods the course book expected.

According to the course calendar, Block 3 should take 8 weeks to cover – I’m hoping now I’ll have a chance to work up some leeway, so I can get back to other pressing matters: M257, with the exam in early June, and S186, where I’ll be deferring the ECA to the 2nd submission date.

The horror that is M359 continues. I’ve just finished Block 2, the final part of which was all about Normal Forms – 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF… The chapter started with the ominous warning that…

..students often find the topic of normal forms to be quite difficult. Be aware that you might have to spend more time on this section than on some of the previous sections and that you may have to read parts of the material several times.”

It then launched into a series of examples and mathematical definitions of the various Normal Forms, and I admit a lot of it just went whoosh over my head – I was working through the relevant TMA question along with the chapter, and the chapter introduction wasn’t wrong about having to read and re-read everything before enough of it sank in to make the TMA understandable, never mind doable. Not a pleasant experience.

But right at the end of the chapter, the short section of BCNF takes all that information, all the finding of Functional Dependencies, all the details explanations, and cuts it down to one simple concept: if you have a relation with duplicate data, project over it to create 2-3 new relations that match the FDs. If you still have duplication, do it again. Read that, it looks to be as though 1NF is your original table, 2NF is 2nd attempt (after splitting once), 3NF the third attempt (after splitting twice) – and put like that, it suddenly seems so much more simple.

Now why couldn’t they have put it like that in the first place!? The obvious answer is that the exam is going to ask about the gory details behind the fairly simple explanations – that worries me, but for now I’m just glad to get another chapter out of the way. Onwards to SQL itself…

I’m still plugging away at M359 – normally I’d wait until a TMA is returned before ploughing on into the next one, but with only 1 month between TMA01 and TMA02, there isn’t time. Block 2 is mostly relational algebra – algebra is I think one of those things that everyone remembers from school with dread, and the way it works on relational databases is no more enjoyable, so at the title says, my head is turning to mush just trying to figure it out.

In short: I’m not enjoying this course…