Re: Nested Relations / RVAs / NFNF

Hi again Marshall - I'm just jumping in haphazardly here.

> So, on a related note, it's a little weird that we use integers as
> keys.

The key is a set of attributes, not the value of those attributes. The "key-ness" of an individual attribute (its membership in one or more of the candidate keys) is orthogonal to its type.

> Integers support e.g. addition, so we are allowed to add
> two keys together. This is nonsensical.

You could say the same about strings or any other type; substring is a string operation, so you could nonsensically take the substring of a "key attribute".

• erk