Re: consolidation of multiple rows

From: --CELKO-- <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2008 17:54:02 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <e0a041e0-3a9e-4779-a5c6-0d29e8654298@d45g2000hsc.googlegroups.com>


>> You don't even remember the name of the (Dutch) guy who invented the nested sets model for representing trees in SQL? <<

Hey, I forget my anniversary and my wife's birthday. That would be Rick van der Lans. I still recommend his SQL book for intro programmers (third edition) and I will be speaking at two conferences his company is hosting this year!

>> [CASE expressions] May be in the DBMS arena. It was however already very popular for many years in the world of Algol and its successors. <<

I learned B-5000 Algol in my freshman year. I remember the "<variable> := IF .. THEN.. ELSE..;" that took so long to get to other languages. We copied the keywords from ADA for SQL.

>> You mean like BNF, also from Algol? <<

No, like Ledgard's rules for upper and lower case, indentation, etc. The Army funded a lot of research on code readability when I worked for AIRMICS.

>> [Worked with several different vendors on their SQL products (most of them are gone now). Hmm, I would rephrase that before putting it on a CV ... ;-) <<

Hey, these were all honorable failures; I did not get involved with dot-coms until later.

>> [encoding taxonomy] is not that original. <<

It is getting picked up more than I thought it would by DW people

>> Ah, prof. Dijkstra was the one who taught me "Structured Programming". I bet he would have considered the current state of affairs regarding SQL harmful .. ;-) <<

I had a chance to meet Dijkstra here in Austin and I did not drive over to UT to do it. I regret that. I also tried to get the UT Press to print his papers or at least clean up the website.l All I got was a dump letter. It seems they get more money for Aztec history or other such things than for IT. Received on Tue Mar 11 2008 - 19:54:02 CDT

Original text of this message