Re: foundations of relational theory?

In article <1Ypmb.23974$HS4.92369_at_attbi_s01>, Marshall Spight <mspight_at_dnai.com> writes
>"Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001_at_sneakemail.com.invalid> wrote in message
>news:dvh0pvo70vrue56jma8gkjotmnu9gm8vtu_at_4ax.com...
>>
>>
>> This must sound horrifying to you relational guys, but again, we don't
>> view the system primarily as a database with applications supporting
>> it. We view the application as a having the database as one of its
>> components - unless the application needs a reference in the
>> dictionary it doesn't get one.
>
>Hypothesis: PICK systems work well for application development
>because of excellent application development tools and tight
>integration between the application language and the DBMS.
>Agility is enhanced by the fact that some of the more complex
>possibilities for data models, such as many-to-many relationships,
>are simply excluded.

NOT AT ALL. many-to-many is easy. You need a table specifically to store foreign-key pairs, we just store the foreign keys directly with the entity (because we can shove a list of foreign keys into what relational would call a "cell"). Each entity manages its own one-to-many list (the LHS *must* be one, because it's an individual entity :-)

Cheers,
Wol

-- 
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
Witches are curious by definition and inquisitive by nature. She moved in. "Let 
me through. I'm a nosey person.", she said, employing both elbows.
Maskerade : (c) 1995 Terry Pratchett