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Normalization is the practice of organizing a database to minimize duplicate data — a core principle of good database design.
The Problem It Solves
Storing a customer's address on every single one of their orders means updating it requires changing many records — miss one, and your data becomes inconsistent.
The Normalized Approach
Storing the address once in a customer table, and having orders reference that customer by ID, means an address update happens in exactly one place and is reflected everywhere automatically.
When to Break the Rules
Some applications deliberately "denormalize" data for performance reasons, accepting some duplication in exchange for faster reads — a deliberate trade-off developers make based on the specific application's needs.
