Re: Nearest Common Ancestor Report (XDb1's $1000 Challenge)

On 7 Jun 2004 15:20:26 -0700, Neo wrote:

>> This started as a challenge to beat XDb1 at it's own game.
>
>Representing things (ie any hierarchy) is not XDb1's own game.
>Isn't RM also in the game of representing things (ie any hierarchy)?

RM stores relations. A hierarchy is a specific type of relation, and not the most common to boot. SQL is not optimized towards the specific needs of hierarchies and has no specific keywords or options to assist the storage of and retrieval of information about hierarchies.

XDb1 is built around the concept of hierarchies and has several builtin tools that are made specifically for hierarchies.

>> And the experiment, though admittedly off-topic for all groups
>> this is crossposted to, still holds my interest.
>
>Isn't the to ability to represent things (ie any hierarchy) without
>NULLs or redundancy in a generic manner an interest to database
>groups?

You forgot to quote the proper context. The full context of my remark was

(from my own earlier post):

It is now no longer a challenge - we are now in the middle of a psychological experiment, researching exactly how deep a human being will humiliate himself in order to avoid having to admit defeat.

(...)
And the experiment, though admittedly
off-topic for all groups this is crossposted to, still holds my interest.

>> The first challenge was much too easy for my liking. The second challenge
>> proved about as tough as I expected, yet not as thought-provoking or even
>> entertaining as I had hoped.
>
>The challenge hasn't change. Understanding of the challenge has.

Indeed it has. Everybody in these newsgroups now understands that you're a liar, a fraud and a cheater and that you never intended to pay anybody from the outset.

> I
>didn't expect most to understand the entirety of it from the start
>because of level of genericness and normalization that I desire is
>uncommon. I expected an iterative process to comparable solution.

I expected that you would try to wiggle yourself out of the challenge you set. History has now proven me right.

>> I'll give Neo one or two days to see if he will unconditionally accept
>> Nick Landberg's suggestion to let an arbitrator decide.
>> After that, I'll stop this sillyness.
>
>I would rather one keep iterating to achieve the original intent of
>the challenge: Represent any hierarchy without NULLs or redundancy in
>as generic a manner. One test of genericness being the ability to
>handle various hierarchies.

The fact that I did unconditionally accept Nick's arbitration offer and that you refuse to do so, proves that both you and me know what the outcome of the arbitration will be.

Which again proves how utterly untrustworthy you are.

(snip)

Best, Hugo

-- 

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