Re: Database vs. DBMS

"Jonathan Leffler" <jleffler_at_earthlink.net> wrote in message news:IoBmd.28487$KJ6.2205_at_newsread1.news.pas.earthlink.net...
>
> > Humans are very, very good at disambiguating, and I've never seen
> > anyone confuse a database and a dbms, even when the wrong term was
> > used.
>
> Since they are two different things and they have separate names, I
> see no virtue in blurring the distinction. Why both with two names if
> you don't distinguish between them. Computers tend to prefer precise
> language - if you work with them, you can expect to be misunderstood
> if you do not use precise language.

But I'm not talking about computer-computer communication, or even human-computer communication; I'm talking about human-human communication. And I completely reject the idea that we should let the needs of human-computer communication shape our human-human communication; as someone whose metaphors flow like the waters of the Mississippi, I would not be happy in such a narrow confine. I am a poet, not a boxed Intel CPU!

If you hear the phrase "a hired hand" or "a hired gun" do you think hands and guns? If you hear "the Whitehouse announced today that taxes would be adjusted for the next year" do you think it's the actual house doing the announcing? Do you have to stop and figure out which sense is meant? I'm guessing not.

The issue here is how *humans* talk. In fact, I'm going to go out on a limb and assert that calling a dbms a "database" is simply metonymy and therefore precisely within the bounds of proper usage. It's every bit as straightforward and *correct* as the "hired gun."

You All Know What It Means Anyway.

Marshall Received on Wed Nov 17 2004 - 09:20:30 CET