Path: dp-news.maxwell.syr.edu!spool.maxwell.syr.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!nx01.iad01.newshosting.com!newshosting.com!130.81.64.211.MISMATCH!cycny01.gnilink.net!spamkiller2.gnilink.net!gnilink.net!trndny09.POSTED!9244eeff!not-for-mail From: "David Cressey" Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory References: <1140883592.060038.188390@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <1140886408.778878.179090@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com> <1140915349.609443.285650@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com> <1140916287.800990.284570@t39g2000cwt.googlegroups.com> <1140928045.223226.301140@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <440185c0$0$11076$e4fe514c@news.xs4all.nl> <1140970790.271141.86810@z34g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <6qoMf.237$ZL1.210@trndny09> <1141001664.809900.18960@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> <1141008236.153354.176410@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com> <1141050914.811161.169690@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com> Subject: Re: MV Keys (was: Key attributes with list values) Lines: 42 X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 Message-ID: <3jFMf.258$ZL1.137@trndny09> Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 15:56:47 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 71.127.7.17 X-Complaints-To: abuse@verizon.net X-Trace: trndny09 1141055807 71.127.7.17 (Mon, 27 Feb 2006 10:56:47 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 27 Feb 2006 10:56:47 EST Xref: dp-news.maxwell.syr.edu comp.databases.theory:36990 "dawn" wrote in message news:1141050914.811161.169690@u72g2000cwu.googlegroups.com... > > David Cressey wrote: > > "dawn" wrote in > > > > > > > Marshall Spight wrote: > > > > David Cressey wrote: > > > > > > > > > > The way Pick (and I presume most of the MV family) represent lists is > > > > > inherently ordered. And, whenever I ask Dawn, or any of the other > > Pickies > > > > > who dorp in form time to time whether the order in a list conveys > > > > > information or not, the answer is always the same: > > > > > "the programmer knows what the data means". > > > > > > I might have said it that way, but the way I would typically say it is > > > that the user knows what it means. > > > > This answers that question. But it raises another: how does a user share > > data with another user who may not (yet) know what the data means? > > I agree that this seems like a problem and I'm sure the must be times > when data are entered as unordered in their meaning and then when > presented as a list, they are interpreted as ordered. Additionally, > one end-user could maintain a list ordered in some way they perceive, > while the next person to maintain that list might be unaware of an > ordering and simply place new entries at the top or bottom of the list. > > For what it is worth, I do not recall any such misunderstandings in > working with Pick since '89. This might be due to poor recollections > or to such misunderstandings requiring no escalations of such issues. I thought you started with Pick in the 1990s. Did you ever use Pick in a database environment?