Re: The MySQL/PHP pair

"Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.comREMOVE> wrote:

[snip]

>What type of proof would you accept -- I could lay out the original def of

     Well, you harp about a mathematical proof for the necessity of 1NF, so how you supply a mathematical proof?

>relation and of 1NF and the original arguement for 1NF and show that while
>the def of "relation" is mathematical, the rational for 1NF is not. I can
>point to the statements in the prior works of Date (BR -- before the
>redefinition) where he makes jumps that are not mathematical in the
>discussion of 1NF. But it would be easier if you would point me to the
>discourse that you think has mathematical rigor and I can show you where the
>mathematics stops and non-rigorous statements are included.

     Of course it would be easier if he did your work for you, but you made the claim that 1NF is faulty. YOU prove it.

     You really have a bee in your bonnet about 1NF. You say that you know x or that you are unsure about another x, but regardless, you still push that view on 1NF. After due consideration, I have come to think of you as a kook w.r.t. 1NF. That is not a compliment.

[snip]

>Yes, you are correct that there are costs. I would not be pitching this
>model if I had not seen with my own budget the difference between
>productivity for developers working with the old-pre-relational PICK model
>and the relational model. I still don't know all of the reasons why, so I'm
>walking around an RDBMS and the older (PICK) model to see what might account
>for this difference in productivity. One aspect of it, I think, is 1NF.

     This is an example about the bee in the bonnet.

>Other aspects include where constraints are coded, the development
>environment, weak vs strong typing (and I don't want to get rid of strong
>typing but perhaps include it with the rest of the constraints so nothing
>new happens at the time of persistence).
>
>I don't have the answer as to what would make software development more

 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


>flexible, agile, productive,... but I am certain that the current RDBMS's


                                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

     This is another.

[snip]

>It is the RDBMS that added complexity to the model -- requiring 1NF when
>people naturually think in lists and nested structures, for example. I'm

     Or is it simplification? At the logical level, those are not needed.

>looking to decouple the data constraints layer from the persistence
>mechanism. There is already coupling between a GUI, for example, and data
>validation -- I just don't want that to be different from the validation
>that then happens. Why have the GUI use one language and set of specs for
>data validation and the persistence mechanism another set of specs and code
>to do the same thing, again? That just means you have to keep these
>constraint specs & code in synch.

     So put them in the database, and have them enforced by the DBMS.

[snip]

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:

     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     He/She has prejudices.