Re: By The Dawn's Normal Light

From: Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.comREMOVE>
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 2004 15:12:05 -0500
Message-ID: <clovf6$plp$1_at_news.netins.net>


"erk" <eric.kaun_at_pnc.com> wrote in message news: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...
<snip>

It seems that every first course in databases still teaches how to put data into the old def of 1NF, and the pervasiveness of SQL-92 perpetuates that too. So I'd prefer to reitre the term 1NF so we stop teaching it with the old def. It adds nothing to the discussion. Then we can rename the upper level NF's so they are not numbered, but named. --dawn Received on Wed Oct 27 2004 - 22:12:05 CEST

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