Re: Requirements for update languages?

Mikito Harakiri wrote:
>
>However, not everything is perfect in the relation world. The next
>exercise would be trying defining aggregate in the *pure* relational
>terms. A recent posting shows how unnatural defining simple
>ariphmetics facts in the relational terms is:
>
>http://groups.google.com/groups?q=sum+group:comp.databases.theory+author:pbrazier%40cosmos-uk.co.uk&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&as_drrb=b&as_mind=12&as_minm=5&as_miny=2002&as_maxd=28&as_maxm=12&as_maxy=2002&selm=51d64140.0210080104.f79cbee%40posting.google.com&rnum=1

Actually I think Paul was more asking the question whether everything can be done in pure FOL (or HOL, higher-order logics), and frankly I think the answer is yes. It is correct that doing aggregation is not trivial but also not mind-bogglingly difficult either, although it's a lot easier in HOL than in FOL.

• Jan Hidders