Hi Jim

They didn't review the alternative of inventing anti-gravity <g>. They kept it simpler than that and went with things they were capable of. I'm certain they didn't examine using metric or imperial measurements at every nut and bolt.

We normalize as much as is reasonable and then we denormalize for performance. Likewise, I'll use views/queries most of the time and I'll use older traditional approaches in those cases where performance is really critical. That way I won't spend all my time re-examining every little piece of code for which approach to take. That sounds simpler to me.