Re: citations of nature

"Bob Badour" <bbadour_at_golden.net> wrote in message news:coOdnY6_-Igw82ei4p2dnA_at_golden.net...
> "Anith Sen" <anith_at_bizdatasolutions.com> wrote in message
> news:zdqKb.11289$6B.2907_at_newsread1.news.atl.earthlink.net...

...[trim]...

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

Thanks once again for that reference to "Predicates and Propositions". This treatment of "What a database really is" is food for thought. It provides a comon sense bridge between set theory and collections of data items, and their organisation in a living and breathing system.

> > 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.

If the fundamentals are not known then you are potentially at a loss. This is not a good state of affairs, as you (and I) appreciate.

My reference to academia was as follows:

   "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"

By this I implied that often evolution of the use of database systems is sourced from where the limits of technology are pushed -- in industry and outside the academic environment.

This is not to detract from the benefit gained in the academic consolidation of knowledge in the same field.

I see academics and industry professionals as cooperative rather than competitive in their respective fields.

> I suggest any rational thinking person would agree that people, in
general,
> see databases as sets of facts. Whether those same people would have the
> verbal ability to express their vision so succinctly is another matter.

There is somewhere around a quote from a mathematician that effectively says exactly the same thing I believe. The gist of the statement (which I will
post if I can track it down again) basically says this ...

Any and every mathematical theorem, no matter how complex or simple, should be able to be expressed in common words by the mathemetician --- and this independent of its symbolic representation (ie: formulaes).

Pete Brown
Falls Creek
Oz

Quote for the Day:

             "Nothing is rich
              But the inexhaustible wealth of nature.
              She shows us only surfaces,
              But she is a million fathoms deep"

              - Ralph Waldo Emerson