Re: The fable of DEMETRIUS, CONSTRAINTICUS, and AUTOMATICUS

"Kenneth Downs" <firstinit.lastname_at_lastnameplusfam.net> wrote in message news:jma9lc.ner.ln_at_mercury.downsfam.net...
>
> Code is recipes. They tell you what to do and you store them in a filing
> cabinet. Data is food, like flour and pies, you store them in the pantry
> and the refrigerator. When this distinction is not understood, you get
> paper in the fridge and flour in the filing cabinet.

True, as far as it goes, but we can also consider code to be data, and data to be code. Any bytecode system is a formal mechanism for specifying code as data; the lambda calculus and Church numerals let us specify data as code.

I think there's not much value to considering data to be code, but I do see value in viewing code as data, when appropriate.

> Or another example. I can do this:
>
> CREATE VIEW new_columns AS
> SELECT column_id FROM dd_columns
> WHERE column_id_existing IS NULL
>
> but I cannot do this:
>
> SELECT features FROM file:///BigBunchOfDDL.SQL
> WHERE Columns ARE Numeric
> AND columns HAVE Constraints

Why not? The where clause at least is perfectly consistent with querying the catalog. (I'm not sure I understand the FROM part.)

Marshall Received on Sat Oct 23 2004 - 19:54:43 CEST