Re: In an RDBMS, what does "Data" mean?

On Sat, 29 May 2004 14:25:32 -0500, "Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote:

>> You just don't get it, do you Wol? No matter how many times people
>> try to explain it to you it just doesn't sink in. The relational
>> model is NOT a model of "the real world" and it therefore doesn't have
>> to correspond to the real world. It is a model of data, which is an
>> abstract concept.
>
>and I just responded to Alfredo who said that data were facts and I thought
>for sure the idea was that these facts corresponded to reality.

Not necessarily. They can be false or about a fantasy world.

>If there is a tight mathematical definition of "data" within relational
>theory, then that's great, but it is not the commonly used definition, I
>suspect.

The common use of the term is sloppy like with many other terms.

> It is in the leap from doing relational theory to thinking that
>the application of such theory is the best approach to storing/retrieving
>propositions using computers by a business -- that is where there is a
>rather significant leap of faith.

You are wrong. It was mathematically proven that it is better than the graph based approaches.

>That connection is NOT science

It is maths, but the word science has many meanings.

>, although
>we could conceivably set up some experiments to collect a bit more
>information about whether it is better than some other approach.

We don't need the experiments and it was proved in the 70's that The Relational Model is better than the other approaches.

It was explained zillions of times in this group.

> I'm not
>opposed to faith

I am completely opposed to faith and other forms of irrationalism. The Relational Model is maths not irrational faith.

Regards
  Alfredo Received on Sun May 30 2004 - 13:32:37 CEST