Re: Relational Databases and Their Guts

> For
> instance, he did not say there is a difference between relational dbmses and
> relational databases.

I did say there was a difference!

> > One can start with the difference between a database and a database
> > management system. A database is a collection of axioms; in other words it
> > is a set of known or true (believed to be true) facts that are properly
> > represented for machine processing.

Properly presented for machine processing is not necessary to have a database. The criteria is actually that it is categorized in some way, and that makes it easier to put into a machine. However, one can generally assumes the existence of some mess that is not, after 40 years, in a computer in some way, is in fact a mess. So, I use the term "mess" to describe non-automated database management systems, I am in fact using the term correctly. It's not a database if its not in a computer. Since you cannot have a database without a system to management, you can actually use the terms somewhat interchangably, so long as you do not complicate with the case of one database server software running more than one database, which was in fact, irrelevant to the question he was asking!

If I don't know what I'm talking about, you are completely irrelevant.

> As absurd as it sounds, it appears he might think
> "rdbms" means something other than "relational database management system."

Hardly.

> If Todd really wanted to make that distinction, he could have simply said
> there is a difference between a dbms and a database, which is pretty obvious

That fogs the issue altogether. The issue that I wanted to bring to his attention was that so-called relational databases are not actually relational, in the theoretical sense, as you yourself has argued. I at least gave the guy some places to start. What did you do? Nothing. Received on Thu Jun 19 2003 - 22:24:55 CEST