Re: Dreaming About Redesigning SQL

Originally posted by Jan Hidders

> Lee Fesperman wrote:

> > Jan Hidders wrote:

> >>Correct. There's absolutely no reason to believe that you cannot
> have

> >>data independence with logical pointer or references. I would
> however

> >>argue that allowing entities without representable keys is not a
> good idea.

> >

> > Incorrect. Even though you call them 'logical' pointers, they
> are

> > still physical artifacts and have no place in a truly logical
> view of

> > the database.

>

> Logical pointers can be defined at the logical level and
> implemented in

> various ways. They are just as much physical artifacts as, say,

> relations are.

>

> > Databases are about

> > data, and pointers are not data (or meta-data).

>

> They carry information. That makes them data. I see no good reason to

> use a more restrictive definition.

>

> -- Jan Hidders

Pointers need not exist for data to be stored/retrieved in/from a database with their relationships intact. The relationships between data can exist without any physical representation at all beyond their proximity to each other. Choose any substring of words from any sentence on your screen. They are related to each other and without the context relationship they lose their value. There are no physical pointers between the words - merely space and other delimiters which can themselves refine relationships. The relationships implied by their proximity to each other carry information but do not exist, physically, as data.

Mike.

--
Posted via http://dbforums.com