Re: Is this bad design ?

"SPeacock" <Xpeacock_at_pacbell.net> wrote in message news:405A4364.F27A24_at_pacbell.net...
> A few observations....
>
> 1st, People have relations to other people with a 'type' of relation.
(type is
> e.g., spouse and child -- the reverse is the parent/grandparent...etc).
Then to
> show legitimacy, the father and the mother would both have a 'ownership'
> relation with a child. Guaranteed that a child needs a ma and pa - at
least for
> the near foreseeable future . A 'valid' mother would be one with a
'valid'
> child and father (except for a few rare biblical references).
>
> 2nd, Teachers don't teach children (people). Teachers conduct a class and
> people attend the class. It is only happenstance that the person 'learns'
or
> that the teacher 'teaches'. There are few occasions where people 'own'
people
> (that went out of style some time ago). But there currently exists
special data
> relationships between physicians and patients (people of type patient) and
> perhaps parole officers and people (parolees). At one time the teacher,
being a
> mentor, allowed a closer teacher/student relationship. But alas, no
longer.
>
> 3rd, the 1st is a bit difficult to do easily or in a straight forward
manner
> with an RDMS. This then leads to why not a non RDMS answer if this is a
> newsgroup of 'theory'.

You mean #1 above, the bit about relations between people? Why is it difficult to do easily? I don't see that. Besides that, though, there's still the baby-and-bathwater argument - switching part of your database to a "different model" just because something at first appears non-straightforward is a losing proposition. Received on Fri Mar 19 2004 - 14:35:31 CET