Re: consolidation of multiple rows

From: DA Morgan <damorgan_at_psoug.org>
Date: Sat, 08 Mar 2008 17:21:37 -0800
Message-ID: <1205025693.260256@bubbleator.drizzle.com>


--CELKO-- wrote:

>>> Actually he isn't that well known, go to any conference and ask and folk will tell you who? <<

>
> Then why do I keep getting speaking invitations from database, data
> management, data warehousing, etc. conferences, decade after decade?
> Somebody must have heard of me! Or else I am working too cheap?
>
> And why I am earning hundreds of dollars in and revenue for a blog
> site that does nothing but post my newsgroup replies? That is really
> working too cheap!
>
>>> There are also a ton of folk (the majority) who don't even use community forums like this one - does not make them bad. <<

>
> Those folks are disappearing. The younger IT people are using the
> Internet when they have a problem or just to surf around. We old
> farts reach for a paper manual.
>
> They don't necessarily get active in a Newsgroup, but they Google them
> a lot. Not too long ago, one of the regulars here remarked that the
> volume of postings was down. I agree with the theory that more people
> find the answers for themselves in the archives, without posting. Not
> so many "Do my homework for me!" people as we had a few years ago.
>
> What failure to use the Online Community does is to make them weak.
> They find themselves locked into one product (even down to one
> version!), one industry and even one niche in that industry. Someone
> already posted a remark about certifications versus ability. They
> have no idea how their work compares to the best of the trade and
> bethink they are just fine.
>
>>> Celko is a "content jockey" - the only thing he's popularized is nested sets and he even pinched that idea from somebody else - search, there is a discussion somewhere on the nested sets origin. <<

>
> No, not quite true. The earliest mention of Nested Sets I found was
> short article in a Nordic or Dutch SQL newsletter in the 1970's or
> early 1980's. After that, I wrote or collected all the standard
> coding tricks for it and brought out a best-seller (well, for a techie
> book; nobody has optioned the film and video rights for a musical).
>
> Just off the top of my head, among other things I popularized (or
> extended):
>
> 1. Original self-join versions of RANK and DENSE_RANK which lead to
> the new OLAP functions.
>
> 2. Use of CASE expressions to replace IF-THEN-ELSE procedural code.
>
> 3. Use of CASE expressions in DDL for complex business rules.
>
> 4. Use of a Sequence table to replace WHILE-DO procedural code.
>
> 5. "Celko's Medians" back when Chris Date and I did "Dueling Database"
> articles in DBMS and DBP&D.
>
> 6. "Celko's Relational Division", again back in the DBMS and DBP&D
> days.
>
> 7. Established formatting conventions used by several magazine and
> book publishers. I helps to have some of the first regular magazine
> columns on a topic.
>
> 8. Promoted awareness of ISO Standards and how to use them (8601 and
> 11179 in particular) among working programmers.
>
> 9. Promoted awareness of scales and measurement theory among working
> programmers. Tho in fairness, this has been of more sue to data
> modelers.
>
> 10. Use of Calendar and Report Range tables. Notice that the term
> "Calendar table" stuck.
>
> 11. The term "Auxiliary table" and related programming techniques for
> table-driven as opposed to computational code. Notice that the term
> "Auxiliary table" stuck.
>
> 12. Rediscovery of interpolation to replace computational code (Data
> warehouse statistical uses; you won't see it in the OLTP newsgroups).
>
> 13. The term "Lasagna Code" back in my Software Engineering days.
>
> 14. The phrase "Automobiles, Squids & Britney Spears" has escaped the
> DB world and is showing in other places. That is weird to me.
>
> 15. Worked with several different vendors on their SQL products (most
> of them are gone now).
>
> 16. Served on ANSI X3H2 for a decade.
>
> 17. Wrote one of the only Database books (trade or text) to stay in
> print over ten years.
>
> 18. Wrote over 800 articles in the trade press.
>
> 19. My original contributions to Data Science is my taxonomy of
> encoding schemes. My taxonomy of key types might also count, but it
> is not that original.
>
> 20. The one project I wish I had time to formalize is the use of
> induction to prove SQL code correct (I am a big fan of Dijkstra, et
> al). I am not sure if anyone else is doing it so that could my PhD
> with it.
>
> I'll stop at 20 and get lunch.

Ignore Tony ... we all do. He is just a frustrated troll who, based on what I know of him from my contacts here in Redmond, is remarkably unimpressive in the eyes of everyone except himself.

The only way he has distinguished himself, so far, is by using childhood taunts like substituting "Denial" for my name. Truly the mark of maturity ... if you are in the third grade.

-- 
Daniel A. Morgan
Oracle Ace Director & Instructor
University of Washington
damorgan_at_x.washington.edu (replace x with u to respond)
Puget Sound Oracle Users Group
www.psoug.org
Received on Sat Mar 08 2008 - 19:21:37 CST

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