Re: The IDS, the EDS and the DBMS

"Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote:

[snip]

>I think your last paragraph gets at something interesting, and that
>something is sometimes called "semistructured data." (That's a really
>terrible term for it, alas.)

     Quite.

>I was one of the crowd that thought "semistructured" was bogus, until
>I started to hear some usage of the term that made sense. Namely,

     I am sorry to hear that.

>data is semistructured when the current context's view of it doesn't
>expose all its structure. (Which emphatically is *not* saying it doesn't
>have structure; it's just that not all of the structure is visible at once.)

     So why not use the terms "encapsulation" and "data hiding"?

     The idea that something does not exist just because it is not visible is not terribly useful or accurate.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:

     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     He/She has prejudices.