Re: Database vs. DBMS

"Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote:

>"Gene Wirchenko" <genew_at_mail.ocis.net> wrote in message news:36ckp0hvul26dupinfjgn6h65rpfl5d58d_at_4ax.com...
>> "Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote:
>>
>> >I just want to go on record as saying that I find the
>> >whole pedantic insistence on differentiating between
>> >a database and a dbms tiresome and counterproductive.
>> >It isn't "precise"; it's ostentatious. Humans are
>>
>> It is precisely "precise". It is also accurate.
>
>Like honesty, precision for its own sake is no virtue.
>
>Has anyone ever seen an actual case of failure to
>disambiguate the two terms causing a problem?
>I haven't. I've never even seen it cause any difficulty
>in discourse. OTOH, I've seen many, many pointless
>corrections made that interfered with actual communication.

     I am not willing to be the one who does run into that problem. I also find misuse of terminology to be a useful tool in figuring out the understanding level of a person I am talking with.

>> Since the English language has a lot of redundancy, one can often
>> get away with sloppiness. However, this comes at a terrible price.
>> When a situation occurs where the distinction is critical, it likely
>> will not get caught since the sloppy user is not in the habit of
>> checking for accuracy.
>
>That has not been my experience. In fact, I flat out don't believe in
>this "terrible price." This is despite the fact that I am someone who
>takes some care to employ propper punctuation and grammar.

     I have seen documentation that could be read two ways. I once had to make a trip to a clients' office, because of such an embiguity in documentation.

>> >People don't confuse classes and objects either,
>> >even if their diction would lead you to believe
>> >otherwise.
>>
>> That is not what I saw while I was working on my diploma. OOP
>> was very difficult for most of my classmates. Some did not ever get it.
>
>I have it on good authority that some people never understand nested
>loops; that doesn't mean that nested loops are a big conceptual problem
>in the programming world.

     These were people who were in the second year of a diploma program. Those who can not understand nested loops were presumably already weeded out.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:

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