Re: Dawn doesn't like 1NF

From: Laconic2 <laconic2_at_comcast.net>
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 11:42:21 -0400
Message-ID: <Bq-dnUAqY8Fs_vjcRVn-pA_at_comcast.com>


"Alfredo Novoa" <alfredo_at_ncs.es> wrote in message news:41655f15.20719046_at_news.wanadoo.es...

> If you read carefully, you'll see that there is not any mention to
> 1NF.

When are you going to stop with this, Alfredo??? It's getting old. Of course there are references to 1NF in the 1970 paper! The term used in the paper is "normal form".

Last weekend, my mother showed me a one volume encyclopedia she's had since the 1920s. It had references to "the world war". I suppose you're going to tell me that those weren't references to the first world war!!??

> The problem is that "simple" and "atomic" are not precise terms.

I may be imprecise in my wording. Codd tried to be precise in his wording. I believe he succeeded.

>
> For instance: Are strings simple or complex?

It depends. From the point of view of the DBMS, they are simple. From the point of view of the SUBSTRING function, they are complex. That doesn't mean that the definitions are vague.

> An string of characters has a discernable structure. It is an ordered
> list of (n) chars.

Again, with regard to the SUBSTRING function. Received on Thu Oct 07 2004 - 17:42:21 CEST

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