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

On Mon, 31 May 2004 12:51:54 -0300, Leandro Guimaraens Faria Corsetti Dutra <leandro_at_dutra.fastmail.fm> wrote:

> Faith originally was not opposed to reason

Indeed, it was a "solution" used when the reason had no answers. Faith is related to magic and authority.

Fortunately the reason has a lot more answers that it had in the prehistory.

>One has faith not necessarily because one accepts another's authority,
>but because one continues to believe something even without presently
>seeing proof of it.

No, proofs are not the only reasons. You are confusing faith with deduction based on incomplete information.

Although like many other words, faith has many meanings like fidelity (faithful implementation) and it is even used for reason based confidence. But I don't think we are talking about these lose uses of the term.

The pickies use the term in order to equate The Relational Model and the primitie approaches. Here is their fallacy:

Irrationalism is faith, rationalism is faith so irrationalism is as good as rationalism therefore The Relational Model is not better than any primitive ad hoc approach.

The flaws of the argument are rather obvious.

> For example, I have no real assurance the building I am
>working in won't crumble while I write these lines. But based on its
>apparently solid form, the fact that buildings don't usually crumble
>without first showing some signs as cracks and shifts, and that the
>municipality has taken some reasonable steps to check the engineers'
>work, I have a reasonable faith in being able to leave for home
>unharmed from falling bricks.

And it has nothing to do with the strict sense of faith. You have a reasonable knowledge with a very high degree of certainty. You are making a good use of the avaiable information and applying maths.

When you say that you have no real assurance about the building, you are saying that you have not faith on it. Faith is all or nothing.

Faith would be to have the absolute certainty about that the building will collapse without any previous sign or logical reason, because it was revealed.

> In another example, I have no way to reasonably prove the meal
>my wife serves me isn't poisoned. But I have faith in her

You have confidence in her among other things because you know that she has no reasons to kill you and good reasons to not do it.

>, and good
>indications in her past behaviour and my knowledge of her psiche, that
>it isn't.

Correct. That's why you have reason and experience based knowledge and not faith.

> To carry this into the Informatics realm, I can't really
>remember all the time all the proofs of why we need RDBMSs. But I've
>seen the proof, and based on my admittedly partial remembrance of them
>I have faith this is the way to go.

You are using the term very losely. IMO it is not a good use of the term and you are playing the troll's game.

This is faith according to the strict meaning of the word:

<quote>
"We believe", says the Vatican Council (III, iii), "that revelation is true, not indeed because the intrinsic truth of the mysteries is clearly seen by the natural light of reason, but because of the authority of God Who reveals them, for He can neither deceive nor be deceived."
</quote>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faith

So what the pickies want to say is that we don't promote The Relational Model because the measurable advantages it has, but because the authority of Codd (that rhymes with God) and his apostle Date Who reveals them, for They can neither deveive nor be deceived. :-)

Regards
  Alfredo Received on Mon May 31 2004 - 20:48:31 CEST