Re: Help writing SQL query

From: Howard J. Rogers <hjr_at_dizwell.com>
Date: Wed, 08 Dec 2004 18:30:12 +1100
Message-ID: <41b6ad84$0$13817$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au>

barry wrote:
> Daniel A. Morgan, University of Washington wrote:
>
>

>>That is not what anyone has said to him. He posted a red herring ...
>>not the actual design he is working with. He is apparently trying to
>>move the data to a "better" design but hasn't shared that either.
>>

>
>
>
> There was no red herring here. I posted the design, only the data (the
> peoples names) was contrived. FYI the real scenario relates to a chemical
> database being migrated from Access to Oracle. The pairs of names in the
> family table are really pairs of atom numbers in a molecule. The
> relationship between them, two being on the same row in the table,
> represents a bond. I didn't put in the chemistry model as then I would have
> to explain how the connectivity is represented for SP3, SP2, SP, tautomeric
> bonds and salts etc which is not trivial. And there is much other data
> irrelevant to the problem at hand too. My family model is much simpler; the
> audience of this group will not be and do not have to be familiar with
> chemistry.

It's OK... Daniel has a habit of putting people down he considers unworthy. You're just the latest in line. He had a point, however: had you mentioned what you've just mentioned first time around, it would have helped avoid people dismissing you on the 'homework' grounds. It would also have forestalled questions about how you know a grandmother's second cousin twice removed is related to Bruce...

As a general piece of advice to anyone asking about complex problems, but wishing to ask it using simplified models/data: it's OK to tell the group that it's a simplification of a more complex problem. It's even OK to generically describe the more complex problem, precisely as Barry has done here for his. In fact, it saves a lot of hassles when you do.

Regards
HJR Received on Wed Dec 08 2004 - 01:30:12 CST