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

"x" <x-false_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message news:40e1c8bd_at_post.usenet.com...
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> "Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message
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> > > How your list is different from a string or a tree ?
>
> > String is a subtype of list, where the element type is character.
> > List is a subtype of tree, where each node in the tree has only one child.
>
> Still not clear what type of elements do you allow for lists.

I have no plans for any restrictions, just like I have no plans for any restrictions on attribute types for relations. That includes relation attributes that are relations, or lists, or lists of relations, etc.

> > Operations would include things like add and delete.
> > There would be no application operation.
>
> Do you think a list is a place where you "store" elements or a string of
> elements (a value) ?

Sometimes I think of a list as a map from Int -> <element type> and sometimes I think of list as a sequence of element values. I don't think of a list as a place where you store things, but I might consider a list-typed variable to be a "place" where I could put a list value.

Lately my thinking goes in the direction of functional programming; everything's immutable, but unlike with FP, you have destructively updatable global relvars.

Methinks this is an ideal and relatively untried model for distributed computing.

Marshall Received on Wed Jun 30 2004 - 03:46:31 CEST