Re: Date is Incomplete - database application software and database theory

"--CELKO--" <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net> wrote in message news:18c7b3c2.0405122107.23777c92_at_posting.google.com...
> >> Why have another language? Doesn't that suggest use of the first
> language is not implemented properly? <<
>
> Nah! It means we like to write languages! :) And, as Dave McGovern
> said "A committee never met a feature it didn't like."

Not that I have got anything against a meal ticket, Celko, 'cause everyone needs to make a living, but your essentially agreeing with me, in that the right hand knows not what the left is doing.

It's just not efficient. It's good while it lasts. Plenty of meetings, bulk contracting, multiple threads of related works, but underneath the organisational procedures is non-self-sustaining waste.

> >> 1. We have database software. <<
>
> Which means SQL these days; a declarative, set oriented language.

That's right, capable of being bound within the RDBMS layer in the form of stored procedures.

> >> 2. We have application software. <<
>
> Which means a procedural, record oriented language.

It may also be incorporated into the TSQL of stored procedures. Traditionally, historically, you are right. But the world is changing.

> >> 3. When are they ever used separately? <<
>
> The procedural, record oriented languages have file systems, so they
> can stand alone. The joke in X3H2 was that SQL really meant "Scarely
> Qualifies as a Language" because it must be embedded in a host
> language and cannot stand alone.

My thesis is that there exists a mechanism whereby an application layer can be written as TSQL in stored procedures *alone*, with the use of a (rdbms) generic portal software acting as a service between the user and the database, thereby obliviating the need for a client applications environment.

> >> 4. One would expect there to be in theory common ground. <<
>
> No, they are such different models of computation and have different
> purposes.
> Well, there is a SQL/PSM standard which is better for applications
> with data in SQL than the older 3GL languages.

This is my point Celko. The model is incomplete, and was that way since the beginning, at least since 1980 when people started using relational database products.

Alot of people think that because I am criticising Date I do not appreciate the work he has done. This is baloney.

I simply ask:
"Have we reached the ultimate level of understanding concerning the theory and management of relational database technology, as elucidated and published by Date et al."?

Of course we have not.
His work is incomplete.

Best wishes,

Pete Brown
Falls Creek
Oz Received on Thu May 13 2004 - 16:59:28 CEST