Re: Some Laws

"Kenneth Downs" <firstinit.lastname_at_lastnameplusfam.net> wrote in message news:fplqic.a0v.ln_at_mercury.downsfam.net...

> I have been trying to formulate a suitably puffed-up version of the basic
> statement: "People understand tables just fine." Some attempts I've had
> include, "The RDM is maximally comprehensible (and useful?) with no
> abstraction added or removed" or "Human beings intuitively understand
> tabular organization."

How about "people understand tables just fine"? The people who need a more puffed up version are the people who aren't going to get the point, anyway.

>
> It seems perhaps you have the same intuitive feel that I do, or perhaps
the
> same experience?
>

Actually, my experience leads me to a slightly different conclusion. I've found that the model
that people understand intuitively, with no training in it at all, is the ER model. And Don Alfredo has told me in this forum that "the ER model is not a data model."

> Tables are the great leveler. When you start drawing boxes and listing
> columns, and finding where to break out details and where to put reference
> information, suddenly everyone just seems to know what is going on and
> contributes. I've seen people of all educational backgrounds, titles,
> status and responsibility come together and actually produce useful work
if
> they go straight to table design. Customer or vendor, makes no
difference,
> technical or "domain expert", makes no difference.

People understand tables as long as they have had to do detail work with data (not necessarily computerized data, but definitely detailed.) Some people who think well in terms of the big picture start to lose interest when you show them tables. That's not because they are stupid, but because they are not detail oriented.

>
> My own current projects take this as axiomatic, and seek to eliminate as
> much labor as possible between table layout and printing pick tickets.
>
I'm not sure I follow this. Can you explain?

> The only consistent exception I've seen are the hard-core procedural
coders,
> the lifers. I'm convinced that they see life in terms of long programs
> that stretch through time, and cannot grasp a quantum change from state to
> state. They cannot seem to make the leap from the classical world of
> step-by-step action and motion to the quantum world of discreet and
> precisely defined columns.

Well, I used to teach database programming and design to hard core coders, and some of them were destined to reject the message. Many are called, but few are chosen. Received on Wed Sep 22 2004 - 04:42:07 CEST