In an RDBMS, what does "Data" mean?
Date: Fri, 14 May 2004 00:44:47 +0100
Message-ID: <o6Qd1REvhApAFwUO_at_thewolery.demon.co.uk>
In relational theory, everyone seems to be talking about modelling
"data", but I've never seen an explanation of what "data" is. As far as
I can tell, C&D took this philosophical concept of "data", and then built their relational theory on top of it. That's okay. We have a (fairly) simple, consistent model. But what the heck IS data?
Okay. Let's explain where I'm coming from. You've seen me going on about
Newton came up with these philosophical concepts called "mass",
Okay. So what is "data". Because if we can't anchor that in the real
world, we have no way of knowing if, or how strongly, relational theory
is relevant (and usable) in the real world.
"evidence" and "science" etc etc. So I'm going to drag science into
this, Newtonian Mechanics, to be precise (of course).
"energy", "space" and "time". On these, he built his (fairly) simple
consistent model. And then Einstein came along and said he'd got his
fundamentals wrong - mass and energy were the same thing, and space and
time were the same thing. And because Newton didn't take the fact that
these things were interchangeable, his model didn't work when compared
to reality.
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 1999Received on Fri May 14 2004 - 01:44:47 CEST