Re: citations of nature

"Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote:

> Anyone who wants to can define a database as a set, but unless I see some
> glaring problem with defining it to be what regular people actually think
it
> is (even if adding some precision to the language), I'll continue to do
so.
> I suppose someone could define a car engine in an abstract way too...?
> Cheers! --dawn

I think that the use of these database systems in today's IT shops is sometimes well beyond the scope of their theoretical academic treatment, and that there is a great deal under the hood of the modern rdbms that was not in the database last decade.

The analogy of the car is spot on. Depending on your technical aversion you can read the sales brochure glossies, or the user manual.

The engine is also but one of a number of parts to the system of a car each of which are important, and sometimes critical to the running of the car. These parts work cooperatively together to effect the semblance of the car as a single unit.

There are correspondingly a series of component parts and utilities within the computer database software, none of which are abstract, providing perhaps a more granulated view of the database system components.

http://www.dbpd.com/vault/9807date.htm
Thanks for the reference!
An interesting article.

Pete Brown
Falls Creek
Oz Received on Mon Jan 05 2004 - 16:19:51 CET