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

In message <40da09a4$0$48959$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>, mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org> writes
>> What I can see happening with relational is over-normalisation -
>>like making the mistake of pointing your invoice billing address at
>>your customer's accounts department. If the company moves, you've
>>just corrupted all your historic invoices...
>
>Yes, this might happen.
>MV beginners are immune to such mistakes?
>Somehow this reminds me of Neo..

No - MV beginners could make the same mistake ...
>
>Why blame the math for adding the wrong figures?
>Why do you grab this (over-normalisation) to
>discredit relational thinking?

My bad. It's just that, in relational, you have to split out the addresses into another table, so "why not use the existing address table?" - a trap that's very tempting to a relational novice.

MV wouldn't have an address table to tempt the MV novice into that trap. That's not to say there aren't traps for MV'ers - one I've had to deal with recently was storing a list of prices, with just one "currency" field - and then I'm tearing my hair out because some prices are local currency in the market while others are "hard currency" shops or black-market dollar/euro prices :-( Damn users programming the system !!! :-)

Cheers,
Wol

-- 
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a
good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports
as Lies-to-People.
The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999