Re: Base Normal Form

From: mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org>
Date: Sun, 10 Jul 2005 16:18:13 +0200
Message-ID: <42d12e29$0$7591$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl>

Marshall Spight wrote:
> mAsterdam wrote:

>>>It can be modeled as many relations as well since a database relation
>>>has unordered columns and a mathematical relation has them ordered.
>>
>>Ah the "naming" trick. It takes care of associating values
>>to the right part of the header - and it invites language.
>>
>>This is the schism point of database and set theory.

>
> I don't see that it's much of a schism. One needs to be able
> to uniquely identify the attributes of the relation, in either
> mathematics or data management. One does so via identifying marks.
> These marks can be strings or they can be integer indexes.

To the DBMS internally the names are just strings. People tend to associate meaning with the names. These raise expectations about the content of tables. Not meeting those triggers changes of the design of the database.

> No big whoop. Notationally, some advantages and some disadvantages
> to either approach.
>
> To be clear: this is a notational issue merely.

Indeed. Notational differences can get quite big though:

roman vs arab numerals
phonographic vs ideographic scripts Received on Sun Jul 10 2005 - 09:18:13 CDT