Joins are the thing that make relational databases worth using. It's not about creating the correct representation of the data; it's about providing the correct

Joins are the thing that make relational databases worth using. It's not about creating the correct representation of the data; it's about providing the correct data with the correct relationships. The power of the relational database is that it can accommodate data of almost any shape and allows for just about any kind of access. Embedding the 'shape' of your data in your application makes it more fragile and gives you less control, not more.