Re: Modelling Considered Harmful

Kenneth Downs wrote:
> Correct. The Relational Model (capital R, capital M) can be used as a guide
> for building relational databases. An employee database cannot be used as
> a guide for building people. The first is a model, the second is record
> keeping.

A model in the sense of a "mathematical model" is just a simplified conceptual version of reality though (or fantasy, although you could argue this is just a part of reality that exists in our minds). Useful for making predictions. e.g. Newton's and Einstein's models of gravity aren't a guide to creating gravity, they just extract the important parts that descibe it in a simplified way. I don't really understand the difference you're trying to make between models and record-keeping. A row in a "person" table of a database is just some simplified information that describes that person.

The relation model is about how to represent data in general, and any specific database is a model of some specific area of interest. So two levels of models.

Paul. Received on Tue Apr 26 2005 - 10:51:27 CDT