Re: Database design

On Wed, 22 Feb 2006 11:41:05 -0800, Mark Johnson <102334.12_at_compuserve.com> wrote:

>"Marshall Spight" <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>Mark Johnson wrote:
>>> "Marshall Spight" <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>> Even if the set were so ordered?
>
>>Once you order a set, it's not a set any more.
>
>Because by definition, correct? Alright:
>
>>Let's say you have some integers: 1 and 2.
>
>Let's say you have a roster of US Presidents. Surely this is stored in
>some database, somewhere.
>
>It is entered row by row, tuple by tuple if you will. And their
>position is entered, as well. While I can understand that one might
>say the ranking would not necessarily apply, it also might. There is
>an intrinsic order to the roster, after all. But by definition, that

     *An* intrinsic order?

     Is that intrinsic order by birthdate?
     Is that intrinsic order alphabetical by name?
     Is that intrinsic order the order in which they served?  (If so,

>relation can NEVER be sorted?

     The *data* in the relation can be sorted.

>Or:
>
>>> >> Or is such simply defined out of the realm of possibility,
>
>>> >Yes.
>
>>> But doesn't that just strike you as mere wordplay?
>
>>I say "the formal definition of a mathematical term";
>>you say "mere wordplay."
>
>I certainly do. But:
>
>>> If a set is
>>> ordered, and one declares it is not, when is it that one can tell the
>>> emperor he should put some clothes on?
>
>>If a data structure is ordered, and one calls it a set, one
>>has revealed one's lack of understanding of the term.
>
>So a set cannot be ordered because to place it in any order is to
>redefine it as non-set? So a roster can never be a set and a roster.
>To become a set, the most important attribute of that set must be
>discarded?

     What attribute is that? A set has no order, so it could not be that. Maybe, you meant "of that ROSTER"?

     Why do you consider the order to be the most important attribute? Why could it not be something else?

>>> If a building is on fire, I for one would not stand there and say -
>>> fire, what fire? Building, what building?
>
>>After the building burned to the ground
>
>But because someone kept saying, and confusing 'first responders' -
>fire, what fire? Building, what building?
>
>They had to get that information elsewhere.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko Received on Wed Feb 22 2006 - 21:33:54 CET