What are we asking of a data model?

For example, it seems that some are asking a question such as "What mathematical model for structuring data is the simplest we can find for hosting predicates and related propositions?" (and I'm sure someone else can word that better, so please take a crack at it)

while others are asking: "which data model is most likely to yield database implementations that are the most cost-effective for the development and on-going maintenance of software applications?" (again, not a perfectly-stated question).

I am looking for answers to the latter question. My interest is in data models whose implementations yield software developer productivity both with initial development of applications and on-going support.

If we were able to set up a contest to collect emperical evidence from various data model implementations and how they relates to developer productivity, would that have any bearing on this discussion or would some database theorists consider such scientific (emperical) data collection to be irrelevant to what they care about? I recognize that no implementation perfectly matches a mathematical model, so perhaps some are more interested in comparing only the models and not looking at what these models have to do with actual database implementations.

Thanks for any insight you can give on this. --dawn Received on Thu Jan 08 2004 - 05:23:47 CET