Re: funny article

Dawn wrote:
> And now "graph DBMS's" can solve the problems of RDBMS. Interesting
...
> perhaps there wasn't a problem in the previous data models, just in
their
> implementations (sound familiar?)

Could certainly be; since this industry tends to attract way too many boys in search of "cool" toys, implementations tend to dominate the industry much more than others. Pascal posted a nonsensical bit of crap from someone at a university - it's at , but it culminates in "There is no difference between telling a physician to give Xeloda for breast cancer and telling a software engineer to apply Real Application Clusters for high availability: Both are product specific solutions to technical problems."

Bollocks. My doctor BETTER know his theories (forged by observation and trial-and-error, but not predicated on particular experiments), or I don't care how well he/she knows Xeloda.

> I have read almost all of Date's 8th edition of Intro to Database
Systems,
> as well as the Third Manifesto and many others. So, I bother as much
as the
> next guy, I suspect.

I applaud you for it, and am interested in how the notions react with your Pick experience as you continue to investigate.

> > No, I do not think it is connected at all. RM makes sense.
XML
> > is an ugly, ugly kludge.
>
> Neither is elegant to my tastes. RM set us back too far unnecessarily
with
> its insistance on scalar/atomic values.

Strange thing to say, since all languages and computer systems have them...

> > Good theory can be *extremely* practical.
>
> Yup, it CAN be! I definitely agree. Blind adherence to flawed theory
is
> not practical, however.

Yup. I'll cheerfully dump RM for something better, but have yet to see it amidst the XML wasteland.

• erk