Re: citations of nature

"mountain man" <hobbit_at_southern_seaweed.com.op> wrote in message news:rgfKb.78898$aT.66274_at_news-server.bigpond.net.au...
> "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.
>
Pete,

The statement, which you seem agree with, is in no way "more practical" than Darwen's observation. In fact, the statement given by Dawn doesn't define a database correctly -- Data in a storage device, with "information about that data", is not a database; just think about it.

A set of propositions is a formal, succinct, clear and generic definition of a database.

To understand why this is the correct interpretation of a database, you have to know precisely what data is, how one should represent data to derive maximum benefits, why it is important to separate data storage aspects from data representation etc. These are not academic treatments, as you put it; but simple yet crucial fundamentals which you ought to know.

-- 
- Anith
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