Excel used to be the poor schmuck’s database, with spreadsheets that just sort of sat there. You could create something more sophisticated with LOOKUP functions, but they were a huge hassle to set up.

Excel possesses formidable database powers. Creating a relational database starts with a Master table that links it to subordinates, called (awkwardly) Slave, Child, or Detail tables. Before we dive ...

Database normalization is the cornerstone of database theory. Once a database is normalized, relationships between the data in multiple tables must be established. A hefty part of designing a ...