Re: Ah, but who has better parties?
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 13:55:09 -0500
Message-ID: <c8b1qq$lq7$1_at_news.netins.net>
"Leandro Guimarăes Faria Corsetti Dutra" <leandro_at_dutra.fastmail.fm> wrote
in message news:pan.2004.05.17.18.32.40.389279_at_dutra.fastmail.fm...
> Em Mon, 17 May 2004 11:22:50 -0500, Dawn M. Wolthuis escreveu:
>
> >> I maintain this is the case.
> >
> > Then you clearly don't know me.
>
> It is not a question of who are you, but what you said, wasn't
> truthful and you knew it.
Nope -- I believed it to be a true statement and still have no evidence that
it is not.
>
> >> You should have said 'I am not aware of' instead 'there is really'.
> >
> > I likely would have used that lesser phrase had I not been pursuing such
> > proof for some time. It sounds like you believe that there is such
proof,
> > so please pass it along.
>
> No, I am not aware of specific savings as in less dollars
> spent. I never cared for that, since it was simply not necessary.
> Going SQL -- which is still much more complicated than relational --
> enabled us to do much it wasn't simply possible before.
What was the business able to do (big picture here) that they could not do before?
> Kinda like PCs add no productivity, and may even hinder it.
> But we can't just imagine life without one, or even better an X
> terminal.
> I guess this is not the place to ask for such proof. Better
> ask all those suits who spent huge money to get Oracle, SQL/DS and IBM
> DB2 in the early days, and even before that were banging IBM's door
> asking them to 'productise' System R because Codd made their eyes
> glitter. Perhaps some of them lost their jobs due to inordinate
> spending, but then this would have been a well-kept secret.
>
> Now as for anedoctal evidence... in Banco Itaú, Brazil's
> second biggest non-state bank -- banks here are less rich, but have
> much bigger user bases than in the US, and quite some complexity too
> due to inflation -- I served the paper exchange department. They had
> some users who had learned IBM QMF on the 3278 -- not the world's most
> user-friendly interface -- so they could query our database by
> themselves, and so they did heartly. They couldn't write a line of
> code otherwise.
>
> At Global Telecom, then a cellular operator for two Brazilian
> states, a Japanese suit who could barely communicate in English and
> use MS Office took my SQLs and used them as templates to extract his
> market information for our database.
>
> Where I'm working we're finishing a retail and warehousing
> project for a supermarket chain replacing their old xBase system,
> because that system can't be data mined except by programming.
That would be due to industry standards going in a different direction, and that makes sense to me.
> So nothing real here, only anedoctes. It is to the suits that
> you have to ask for the financial demonstrations.
In the absense of proof, anecdotes are useful. They are not proof, however.
> But it still fazes me why in the US you measure all by the
> dollar. Somethings are so elegant to be self-evident.
I measure a lot outside of the dollar, but I'm using the dollar as metric that everyone understands. For example, I understand that many more dollars are being invested in SQL-DBMS's and I don't understand why. I understand that many more dollars are spent both short and long term in IT when heading from many of the legacy systems to SQL-DBMS-based applications, but perhaps the money is returned in the productivity of the company.
I think relational theory is elegant, but it is not self-evident that it is relevant to my work (information systems).
>
> > I will accept your criticism, but not due to your superiority in either
> > category ;-)
>
> Certainly not... I do not possess neither wide, deep
> knowledge, nor striking humbleness. It is just that I don't like the
> particular combination of not knowing something *and* pontificating
> about it.
Questioning is part of the search for an answer, but point taken.
>
> > I'm certain that I am ignorant of some areas you are not, and I
willingly
> > admit that, where I haven't seen much evidence of a similar wisdom from
> > you.
>
> Perhaps because we have been debating precisely an area where
> you have problems understanding your limitations?
And you?
> Perhaps if we were discussing your hobbies instead of mine...
>
> > But, if you have evidence (not just anecdotes) of significant cost
> > reductions in our industry due to the implementation of SQL-DBMS's over
> > the past twenty-some years
>
> Actually thirty.
Because the first commercial product came out in ...? We are closing in on 30, but I didn't think we were there yet. We are close to 40 years since PICK was running in the lab and well over 30 for a product based on the relational model, but first deliveries of such followed a bit. But, oops, this is YOUR hobby, while mine is the hula hoop. cheers! --dawn Received on Mon May 17 2004 - 20:55:09 CEST