Re: The Practical Benefits of the Relational Model

From: Paul Vernon <paul.vernon_at_ukk.ibmm.comm>
Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 16:36:17 +0100
Message-ID: <ap6fms$ora$1@sp15at20.hursley.ibm.com>

Paul, you are right to point out that in maths tuples have an positional naming scheme, while in the relational model we use attribute names. And these are effectively equivalent methods.

Otherwise I just think you are just restating things already said (not that I disagreed with the thrust of your comments).

Date & McGovern allow two relvars in a database to have the same type, thereby rasing the problem of 'orthogonal design'.

I am suggesting that we do not allow two *real* relvars in a database to have the same type, thereby avoiding the 'orthogonal design' problem.

The question I have is; is my restriction on real relvars in a database acceptable? I have failed to think of a reason why it would not be acceptable.

Regards
Paul Vernon
Business Intelligence, IBM Global Services

P.S. my restriction means that relvar names are not considered to hold any meaning, they are just shorthands for a relation type. Received on Wed Oct 23 2002 - 10:36:17 CDT