Re: database systems and organizational intelligence
Date: Wed, 26 May 2004 12:52:23 -0400
Message-ID: <2hk09hFdml8oU1_at_uni-berlin.de>
Your comment below is a joke, I hope.
A functional dependency is a property of the SEMANTICS or MEANING of the
attributes. It occurs at the "business" level. It is something that business
people can tell you. Like (a not perfect example, but easy to understand):
Each person in our company has a Social Security Number, and each Social
Security Number (SSN) identifies one and only one person. So, in the
miniworld of our company, we know that the value of an employee's SSN
"Functional" in this context means "unique". It has nothing to do with functions as you are thinking of them.
It has zero, nothing, nada, zip to do with code. Nothing at all. Nothing.
The word
> "functional" is another clue that when we are working with data, we are
also
> working with functions. Data + Functions = Code? (all terms would need
to
> be more precise for that to be meaningful, I realize).
>
Received on Wed May 26 2004 - 18:52:23 CEST