Cannot see any problem with design 1.

You don't think it's wrong to mix two different things into one table? Or are you of the opinion that Aliases and Facts are two "types" of the same thing?

I have to say that it is normailized.

Surely one column's meaning changing depending on the value of another is a violation of some rule of normalization? Like I said, I don't know the names of all the rules, and what they mean exactly, but this seems wrong.

I don't like design 2.

Any particular reasons?

In reply to Re^2: OT: benefits of database normalization by revdiablo
in thread OT: benefits of database normalization by revdiablo

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