How important is database normalization in a very simple database?

Question

I am making a very simple database (mysql) with essentially two types of data, always with a 1 to 1 relationship:

Events

• Sponsor
• Time (Optional)
• Location (City, State)
• Venue (Optional)
• Details URL

Sponsors

• Name
• URL

Cities will be duplicated often, but is there really much value in having a cities table for such a simple database schema?

The database is populated by screen-scraping a website. On this site the city field is populated via selecting from a dropdown, so there will not be mistypes, etc and it would be easy to match the records up with a city table. I'm just not sure there would be much of a point even if the users of my database will be searching by city frequently.

Answer 1

Normalize the database now.

It's a lot easier to optimize queries on normalized data than it is to normalize a pile of data.

You say it's simple now - these things have a tendency to grow. Design it right and you'll get the experience of proper design and some future proofing.

Answer 2

I think you are looking at things the wrong way - you should always normalize unless you have a good reason not to.

Trusting your application to maintain data integrity is a needless risk. You say the data is made uniform because it is selected from a dropdown. What if someone hacks on the form and modifies the data, or if your code inadvertently allows a querystring param with the same name?