Re: foundations of relational theory?

Bob Badour wrote:

>Lauri Pietarinen <lauri.pietarinen_at_atbusiness.com> wrote in message news:<bnmkv8$f9j$1@nyytiset.pp.htv.fi>...
>
>
>>Marshall Spight wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>>"cmurthi" <xyzcmurthi_at_quest.with.a.w.net> wrote in message news:3F9E7BFE.7050400_at_quest.with.a.w.net...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Perhaps
>>>>this can evolve to a discussion of priorities and strategies in
>>>>application development instead of purely theoretical niceties.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>I'm interested in practicalities, but I'm also interested in
>>>theory. The big reason I read c.d.t. is to further my interest
>>>in theory. When I'm at work, I'm Mr. Practical. When I'm
>>>home, reading newsgroups, I put my theory hat on. So
>>>I actually have a *cultural* bias against discussing practicalities
>>>while here. (Plus, I already get a steady diet of that.)
>>>
>>>Of course, the weird thing about crossposting is that "here"
>>>and "there" are the same place. This post goes to both, but
>>>I'm only subscribed to one. To me and other cdters, this
>>>is home base; to the cdpers, same thing. This kind of
>>>breaks a basic human interaction mechanism, which is
>>>that you be extra-polite when you're in someone else's
>>>home. We're each in the others' living room.
>>>
>>>I'm not sure who first brough c.d.t. and c.d.p. together; it
>>>was perhaps not the best fit of cultures!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I think this interaction has brought up many interesting and important
>>aspects. The reason
>>I am interested in theory is that it will make my practice better. I
>>don't believe in theory
>>for theorys sake. Through out history the best theorists have also
>>excelled in practice
>>(I am thinking of Aristoteles, Newton, Gauss). The most interesting
>>things come about
>>where theory meets practice. Even Codd in his work was very oriented
>>towards practice.
>>For example there is no theoretical reason for mandating that columns
>>have names and no order.
>>The reason for this is to make the database more *practical*.
>>
>>
>
>As a matter of fact, Codd's original work used ordered columns.
>
Not to pick a fight, but I did find this paragraph in the 1970 Codd paper:

"Users should not normally be burdened with remembering the domain ordering of any relation (for example, the ordering supplier, then part, then project, then quantity in the relation supply). Accordingly, we propose that users deal, not with relations which are domain-ordered, but with relationships
<http://www.acm.org/classics/nov95/notes.html#rel> which are their domain-unordered counterparts."

Lauri Received on Wed Oct 29 2003 - 15:54:04 CET