Re: Oracle and PICK

"Anthony W. Youngman" <wol_at_thewolery.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:<xeAb8hDDEliAFw9e_at_thewolery.demon.co.uk>...
> In message <c0e3f26e.0404171002.3c3ae4c2_at_posting.google.com>, Tony
> <andrewst_at_onetel.net.uk> writes
> >"Nick" <nquinnusa_at_earthlink.net> wrote in message
> >news:<XC8gc.12319$zj3.10639_at_newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>...
> >> Ok,
> >>
> >> Define an Order Header and the Order Items in that table, please.
> >
> >You know that I know that you know that I would now provide you with 2
> >create table statements. And I know that you know that I know that
> >you would then say that was a Bad Thing. Etc. etc. etc.
> >
> >All we need then is for Wol to come along and claim that now I have
> >mysteriously "scattered" the 2 entities Order and Order Line across 2
> >separate tables, there is no way the DBMS can put them together again!
> >
> >Perhaps it's best that I just don't bother ;-)
>
> Actually, I wouldn't. I would just ask "how many items of information do
> you need to access data in the table? The answer is two - row-key and
> column-name - therefore the table is two-dimensional.
>
> Oh - and the question was "how do you describe a three-dimensional
> thing". So you chose to represent a point. I'm not sure how many
> dimensions that has but it ain't three! Nor is it two because that's a
> line. I suspect it's zero-dimensional.
>
> Hm! You need two dimensions to represent a zero-dimensional object! By
> my maths that makes you need infinity dimensions in order to represent
> three! :-)

Cute, if perhaps getting a little tiresome ;-) Received on Sun Apr 25 2004 - 12:05:32 CEST