Re: Pizza Example

In message <c5fgtd$rk9$1_at_news.netins.net>, Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> writes
>So, you know you want to look at COURSES? What do you want to know about
>them -- who is teaching a course, taking it, what the course catalog
>description is, ...? All of this is part of the vocabulary of going after
>"COURSES" data. So, the user could possibly see data that is stored in
>hundreds of different "files" through the vocabulary of one or more such
>files. It is more like taking a di-graph (such as the web) and flattening
>it by being able to access any page you might want to access with links from
>a given page. So, if you got to the page/document/record for the course
>Calculus 161 Section 01 the page will have on it not just links to the name
>of the professor who is teaching it, but it will look to you, the reader, as
>if that data were actually the same as another data you see related to that
>course. The vocabulary saves the user from needing to know where anything
>is stored.

To use a different analogy - think of a hierarchical database. Every Pick "table" is the root of its own hierarchy, and the user has no need to know in which leaf the data is actually stored. The "table" stores that information in virtual fields. As Dawn says, however, it usually takes a DB guy to create/maintain those virtual fields, although they can be created "on the fly" if you know what you're doing.

Cheers,
Wol

-- 
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a
good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports
as Lies-to-People.
The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999