Re: By The Dawn's Normal Light

From: erk <eric.kaun_at_pnc.com>
Date: 27 Oct 2004 12:29:44 -0700
Message-ID: <1098905384.457294.267420_at_z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>


> But who declares the old definition "useless"? Is there some sort of
peer
> review on this process, like there is in the world of science?

Uh... yeah! This forum! We're it!

> And what
> happens to all the body of theoretical papers that are already out
there
> that make a point that's valid under the old definition, but are
suddenly
> logically wrong under the new definition.

I don't think it's that cut-and-dried; the old definition was meaningless, because it described something true of all relations. Only someone distinguishing "1NF relations" from non-1NF relations would have an issue, and I'd argue that yes, those papers should be discarded, since they worked in the immediate vicinity of 1NF and non-1NF without ever delving into what they really meant! It would depend on the paper...

> Do we ask Winston do go back and
> rewrite all those papers so as to be "correct" under the new
definition?
>
> Or do we just throw the old papers in the memory hole?

Depends on the paper in question. Certainly some of its statements might be, at best, meaningless. Completely wrong? Maybe. And that's not dependent on the definition; that's dependent on them never understanding that the definition relied on undefined terms.

  • erk
Received on Wed Oct 27 2004 - 21:29:44 CEST

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