Re: Other tree representations in SQL

In message <IvwH9.2325$La5.561977498_at_newssvr10.news.prodigy.com>, Greg Boland <gregb_at_snet.net> writes
>I posted Top only because you don't need to read the rest to get an idea of
>what I'm thinking. The tree model, no matter how you do it, is contrived
>under the sql model.

Yup! There's a structure clash.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there's a model somewhere that fits both. To my mind the traditional relational database looks like a system for locating a datum using Cartesian coordinates. The tree structure looks like a system for locating a datum using polar coordinates.

Perhaps if we reframe relational algebra as relational geometry there's a Riemannian solution that unites the systems. (More likely it will add another mutually incompatible model.)

-- 
Bernard Peek
bap_at_shrdlu.com
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