Re: Complete axiomatization of relational algebra

On Sat, 17 Feb 2001 07:07:29 -0800, Neil Nelson <n_nelson_at_pacbell.net> wrote:
>Clearly the resulting denormalized single table is not efficient nor elegant,
>and it would be rare that someone would care to use such a table.

Well, I've seen it. A newbie programmer was instructed in grand terms, to make his database "flexible" to changes. All by his lonesome, he discovered that a table with columns T, A, K, V could be added, and that with "pivot" operators he could dynamically construct whatever rows he wanted.

Of course, the SQL was horrendous, and the exercise unnecessary to the extreme.

Didn't Dr. Codd conceive the whole relational project in algebraic terms? Is it possible that, like me, nobody has ever read the gentleman's work?

Joshua Stern
JRStern_at_gte.net Received on Sat Feb 17 2001 - 20:55:42 CET