Re: By The Dawn's Normal Light

So, 1NF tells us:

1. the potentialities have all occured (a physicists view),
2. the form is completed and signed (a bureaucrats view),
3. the check has been deposited (the businessmans view), or
4. whatever... (the surfers or technologists view).

:-)

Bill

"Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message news:gkxed.303674$D%.250206_at_attbi_s51...
> "Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote in message
news:_M-dnVCpa_yP5efcRVn-jA_at_comcast.com...
> >
> > I claim that it's not useful to have one definition for "relation" for
> > mathematics and an incompatible one for IT. On this point I agree with
> > Dawn.
>
> I agree also.
>
>
> > And it's clear to me that the mathematical definition of "relation"
> > does not force the values in the tuples to be atomic. And it's clear to
me
> > that the definition I always learned for 1NF does force the values in
the
> > tuples to be atomic.
>
> Yeah, that's true.
>
>
> > So, if someone wants to adjust the definition of 1NF so that it no
longer
> > requires atomic values, I would prefer that they invent a new term,
like
> > "Date-Darwen Normal form". There is precedent for this. "Boyce-Codd
Normal
> > Form" was sandwiched between 3NF and 4NF, rather than renumbering the
> > normal forms.
>
> Fair enough.
>
>
> > If someone wants to change the definition of "Relation", I would prefer
> > that they invent a new term, like "normal relation".
> > Then they can say that a "normal relation is in 1NF (and may also be in
> > other normal forms)".
> >
> > If we did this, we could talk about "relations" as such, and talk
about
> > "normal relations" when we need to.
>
> It seems like the term "NFNF" is fairly established as the term for
> relations that allow attributes to be relations or lists; that works for
> me. There's also this term "nested relations" but it seems to mean
> something very specific that I haven't quite nailed down yet.
>
>
> Marshall
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 26 2004 - 20:32:43 CEST