Data normalisation was huge in the past because of storage concerns. But it makes less sense now. There's still concerns of inconsistent data and duplication bu

Data normalisation was huge in the past because of storage concerns. But it makes less sense now. There's still concerns of inconsistent data and duplication but often it's more performant to not do it to the extreme extent we learned to in the 90s with all the normal forms. It's still a good concept but no longer a strict rule. The inconsistency can be covered with stored procedures and prepared statements which are also a great way to improve security (SQL injection) So IMO excessive normalisation is no longer the be all and end all in this day and age. Just the way an RDBMS is always the way to go. Sometimes object storage is better. But anyway I'm surprised you saw less normalisation in old code. Personally I saw much more then than now.