Re: Tables and Views

On Sat, 25 Sep 2004 11:09:20 -0400, "Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote:

>In another discussion, the comparison between l-values and r-values was
>being made. Somebody said, "congratulations, you've invented the virtual
>expression"
>
>That started me thinking down a different path:
>
>What if we've been thinking backwards all these years. We've been saying,
>one way or another, that a view is an expression pretending to be a store.

Eh? A view is many things, but not that.

It's a way of providing a consistent interface to the actual data, even after changes to the underlying tables.

It's a way of making queries on the data more concise (put the complex joins and where clauses in the view rather than the queries).

It's a security feature, allowing access only to certain subsets of the data to different classes of user.

It's a window onto the data. It isn't, nor does it pretend to be, a store.

>How about looking at it the other way? How about viewing a table as a store
>pretending to be an expression?
>Where does this lead?

Madness. Utter madness.

Lemming

-- 
Curiosity *may* have killed Schrodinger's cat.