Re: Domain

From: Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com>
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 13:08:35 -0600
Message-ID: <bssifn$n6t$1_at_news.netins.net>


"Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message news:0TiIb.15996$xX.40748_at_attbi_s02...
> "Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote in message
news:bsqv24$r4r$1_at_news.netins.net...
<snip>
> > Beware
> > of anyone who adds in words like "atomic" into definitions of "domain".
> > Unless we (as a profession) can find a useful definition of atomic, I'd
like
> > to leave such useless jargon out of database discussions altogether.
>
> Agreed. But I think atomic has a well-established meaning: "of or
> employing nuclear energy." No, wait, it's "indivisible." An atomic
> operation is one that cannot be broken down into smaller operations;
> it succeeds entirely or not at all. An atomic value is a value which
> cannot be broken up into subcomponents.
>

You mean a value like 438? Nope, that would be 4 hundreds, 3 tens and 8 ones so we would have these three atomic values make up the not-automic 438, right? Or, because a particular model or implementation does not include functions to split out 438 into three "more atomic" values, then 438 is atomic? If there are string functions to break it apart, then "438" is "4" concatenated with "3" concatenated with "8". Once we get it down to 0's and 1's, then we can likely consider a value atomic from the standpoint of computers and databases. I'm sure we can define atomic otherwise, but it just doesn't seem useful to me (yet?) --dawn

>
> Marshall
>
>
Received on Tue Dec 30 2003 - 20:08:35 CET

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