RE: Any articles/books that take relational theory and make it

Agreed. And I think you'll admit it's better to be familiar with and aware of the theory, even if current db products don't live up to the model 100%, so you know to bring up the kinds of issues you mention in the first place. In that sense, I think the knowledge to be gained from Date, Darwen, Pascal, etc., can be very practical.

• Dan

On Wed, 19 Nov 2003, Niall Litchfield wrote:

> I obviously can't speak for the list, but I find Fabian Pascal to be
> very interesting, but quite academic. What I *think* that I mean by this
> is that a lot of what he says seems to make theoretical sense, but I'm
> unsure how applicable it is to practice. IOW the general feel that I get
> from Fabian (and indeed Date) is that if something doesn't meet
> relational theory then it is flawed. This may well be a good default
> position to have, but I'm unprepared to say to folk who pay my wages
> 'sorry your data model isn't in 3NF' or 'you shall not use a
> materialized view'. I *will* quite happily say 'so how will you ensure
> data integrity?' 'what happens if another program uses the same data' or
> 'why did you use computed summaries?'
>
> Niall
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: ml-errors_at_fatcity.com [mailto:ml-errors_at_fatcity.com] On
> > Behalf Of Daniel Hanks
> > Sent: 19 November 2003 16:25
> > To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
> > Subject: Re: Any articles/books that take relational theory
> > and make it
> >
> >
> > On Wed, 19 Nov 2003 ryan_oracle_at_cox.net wrote:
> >
> > > I swapped emails with a member of the list and Im having trouble
> > > seeing how you can take 3NF, BCNF, etc... and turn that into DBA
> > > speak. One of the guys told me that BCNF essentially means
> > you have a
> > > key that you can put a unique constraint on. Well that
> > makes this much
> > > easier to understand.
> > >
> >
> > Hrm, I thought a key, by definition, implied a unique constraint...
> >
> > > All my theory books just discuss theory. Anyone know some
> > that split
> > > the difference. IE, not Codd, not CJ Date, Not the academic
> > textbooks.
> > >
> >
> > I'm not sure what the opinion on Fabian Pascal is here on the
> > list, but I found his "Practical issues in Database
> > Management" to be very good. It's subtitled "A reference for
> > the thinking practitioner". It's not a textbook, but it does
> > make you use your brain a bit. It might be what you're
> > looking for. It has helped to clarify the relational model
> > for me, but might put some people off as it's critical
> > (without naming specific products) of most current
> > implementations of 'relational' databases.
> >
> > > Thanks.
> > >
> > >
> >
> > -- Dan
> > ==============================================================
> > ==========
> > Daniel Hanks - Systems/Database Administrator
> > About Inc., Web Services Division
> > ==============================================================
> > ==========
> > --
> > Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.net
> > --
> > Author: Daniel Hanks
> > INET: hanksdc_at_about-inc.com
> >
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>
>

-- 
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   Daniel Hanks - Systems/Database Administrator
   About Inc., Web Services Division
========================================================================
-- 
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