Re: foundations of relational theory? - some references for the truly starving

Costin Cozianu <c_cozianu_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:<bn3nbs$seug1$1_at_ID-152540.news.uni-berlin.de>... [snip]

> You could compensate if you wanted by a careful thought out scientific
> work to prove exactly what your model buys the user. Actually, the work
> was kind of done for you, theorists have analyzed the model and reached
> the logical conclusion that there's not much to it.

References please? Don't bother pointing me to Date's inconclusive "research done on the web". I'm more interested in the complete analysis with the logical conclusions. I suspect (strongly) that it doesn't exist. I concede that there are, however, a vast number of theorists that *assume* incorrectly (and illogically) that there's not much to it. I'd ask each and every database theorist reading this thread to ask themselves "what is the basis in fact for this belief?".

> Even more, the model
> is already available one way or the other in existing SQL DBMSes,

Yes and no. Yes - the SQL "relational" vendors are slowly coming 'round - although the way they implement roughly equivalent capability is nowhere near as slick as traditional "Pick". No - because what they've come up with ("nested tables") is a "bodge job", very poorly implemented, and is therefore rarely used.

> but
> typically I don't use it and most people don't use it, for very
> practical reasons.

Yes. Because "nested tables" is a very poorly done bolt-on.

>
> You can't blame the "theorists"

Sure I can - when they make incorrect assumptions, criticise what they don't understand, and are prepared to believe others that have done likewise.

> when you have very practical and serious
> problems, like for example your clients investing in an obsoleted
> technology with problematic future. And it is ridiculous for you guys to
> whine that theorists disregard your model, actually they don't, it's
> described in all theory books (now that I know it's actually about
> nested relations), they just are not so crazy about its virtues.

Again - references please? Show me the books that describe the Pick/'multi-value' model. You say you now "know it's actually about nested relations". Describe what you know about "nested relations" and we'll see.

Regards,
Mike. Received on Wed Oct 22 2003 - 04:46:54 CEST