Re: relations aren't types?

"Mikito Harakiri" <mikharakiri_at_iahu.com> wrote in message news:FZiIb.6$7S6.111_at_news.oracle.com...
>
> "Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_golden.net> wrote in message
> news:XeCdnbxDlZnbh2yiRVn-vA_at_golden.net...
> > "John Jacob" <jingleheimerschmitt_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message
> > news:72f08f6c.0312291844.48dd11fc_at_posting.google.com...
> > > > The relation value in the attribute for each tuple is
> > > > a single value with defined operations. How does that differ from an
> > > > integer?
> > >
> > > Types are not atomic, values are.
> >
> > How does that answer the question about the difference between a
relation
> > value and an integer value?
>
> I beg to disagree. This was the only sentence in the whole discussion that
> made sence to me.

While it may have made sense to you, it was totally irrelevant to the question asked. We agree that values are atomic--including relation values and tuple values. So?

> Consider the "Group" type. Now, some groups are decomposable into direct
> products, like dihedral group D_3 (aka symmetric group S_3), while the
> others, like cyclic group Z_3, don't. I'm tempted to call Z_3 atomic, and
> S_3 composite value, then.
>
> Likewise, some integers can be represented as products of smaller numbers,
> while the others - prime numbers - don't.

Some integers can be represented as sums of smaller numbers, while others cannot be. Every value is potentially the result of some operation. I don't see anything interesting or useful in the observation. Received on Tue Dec 30 2003 - 19:59:33 CET