Re: Oracle 7.1 Enhancements

In article 30o8dbINN4hj_at_news.ougf.fi, rissahe1_at_news.ougf.fi (Heikki Rissanen) writes:
>Wolfgang Roeckelein (wolfgang_at_wi.WHU-Koblenz.de) wrote:
>: No! Read Codd, who defined what key points a relational database should
>: have and one thing that he clearly states is that NULL has to be different
>: from anything else. NULL denotes a missing value (unknown), whereas a
>: empty string is a string. E.g. a telephone number: NULL means unknown (no
>: information), empty means the guy has none (information).
>
>I feel that this null business is an example where relational mathematics
>goes to far from the practical life. Since mathematics tell that there are
>different meanings of NULL, and that nulls may or may not be eqal to each
>other, our rdbms vendors take the easiest way and do nothing. And we pay
>the bill.
>
>Suggestion: a null is a null is a null - whatever mathematics say.
>
>First thing to do would be to give us some way to define that, in OUR
>installation, it is preferrable to considers NULL as something different
>from anything else. A simple INIT.ORA parameter could be fine.
>
>This would make it possible to include null values in index trees and
>compare null with other values, for example. I don't care so much where
>nulls are bigger or smaller that others.
>
>Regards,
> Hessu
>
>
>--
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>Heikki Rissanen, United Papermills, Rauma, Finland
>Email: heikki.rissanen_at_ra.upm.yhtyneet.mailnet.fi
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Scary what's out there designing systems - isn't it??? (Rhetorical ;-})

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