Re: Does Codd's view of a relational database differ from that ofDate&Darwin?[M.Gittens]

Jan Hidders wrote:
>
> It provides you with a higher-level data model.

Can you be specific about some features you consider to be higher level?

> Moreover, it has slowly
> begun to dawn on people that the big advantages of the relational model
> (simplicity, formal basis, data-independence, declarativity, etc.) are
> actually also easiliy achieved in other data models.

Do you mean XML here, or are there other specific models you have in mind? I'd be interested to look at other models that have the features you name, especially simplicity.

When I was first exposed to SQL database, I didn't consider them very interesting. I was writing drivers for various commercial DBMS products and didn't learn much SQL at first; just "select * from table" was enough to get most of the development of the driver done, and you switched over to automated testing once that worked.

Then one day someone showed me how you make a many-to-many table. I was really struck by the elegance of this approach, and how much you could accomplish with so little. (This led me to start wanting to learn more about SQL which led me to TTM and this newsgroup, among other things.)

What I've never gotten from XML is someone showing me, "hey, look at this: here's something you can do that really gives you quite a lot of power for very little complexity."

Anyone?

Marshall Received on Sat Jun 25 2005 - 19:46:25 CEST