Re: Codd provided appropriate mathematics ... (was Re: Relational and MV (response to "foundations of relational theory"))

Home -> Community -> Usenet -> comp.databases.theory -> Re: Codd provided appropriate mathematics ... (was Re: Relational and MV (response to "foundations of relational theory"))

From: Marshall Spight <mspight_at_dnai.com>
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 17:04:16 GMT
Message-ID: <kcMZb.30719$Xp.117694@attbi_s54>

"Eric Kaun" <ekaun_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message news:Wb6Zb.39912$sd3.33831_at_newssvr33.news.prodigy.com...
>
> Here's the real rub: relations allow you to reason soundly, and in
> arbitrarily complex ways, in terms of atomic propositions (which means it
> takes more work to develop them, due to the fact that you have to think
> about what those propositions are!) That means your application can grow
> "linearly" with respect to functionality and query complexity - hard
> questions are hard, easy questions are easy. With a hierarchy, a single
> brand of complex question is easy, and other things are murder; plus you
> have to write those other things in baroque hierarchy-scanning procedural
> code.

This is an excellent and eloquent statement about the problem with trees.

Based on this and some previous posts, I hereby vote Eric Kaun as the best newcomer to comp.databases.theory. He's polite, too! We could use some more of that around here, ahem.

Marshall Received on Sat Feb 21 2004 - 11:04:16 CST