Re: Order & meaning in a proposition
Date: Tue, 06 Apr 2004 02:38:31 +0200
Message-ID: <4071fc03$0$562$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>
Dawn M. Wolthuis wrote:
> ... there still seems to be an aspect
> missing that is integral to understanding data -- language.
You might want to also read Larry Wall on postmodernism.
When taking a
> proposition and normalizing it for the purpose of modeling it, there are
> times when information is inadvertently lost or left behind because it is
> not critical. Sample proposition:
>
> Pat is the host who seated the President and the Secretary of the Interior
>
> If we have a relational model for this proposition, we will end up splitting
> this proposition up and will undoubtedly lose the order of those who were
> seated.
A designer consulted me: "I want to display the first 10 rows of <a complicated query on metadata>". He had to deal with Sybase, DB2, Oracle, SQL-server and some other. I told him: As soon as the order of something seems relevant, all SQL-committee members duck for cover. So, you'll have to recode it for every dbms.
> A data modeling process that respects the integrity of the stored
> propositions so that they can be retrieved again has something going for it
> that the relational model lacks, it seems. Any thoughts? Thanks. --dawn
Just: let's get to the bottom of this -- sorry not to give you anything more substantial. Received on Tue Apr 06 2004 - 02:38:31 CEST