Re: CJ Date on Missing Information

From: paul c <toledobythesea_at_oohay.ac>
Date: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 06:15:08 GMT
Message-ID: <MLrTf.163474$B94.108510@pd7tw3no>

Jonathan Leffler wrote:

> Paul Mansour wrote:
> 

>> I've just read "The Default Values Approach to Missing Information" in
>> Date's Database Writings 1989-1991. I've also noted that in the 8th
>> edition of Date's main textbook, he refers to the "special values
>> scheme' for handling missing information, and points to an article in
>> Database Writings 1994-1997. I don't have the 94-97 book, though I am
>> trying to track down a copy, and I'm curious to know if Date's view on
>> handling missing information has changed since the 89-91 writings, or
>> is it more or less the same. Any comments on this would be appreciated.

> 
> 
> The 94-97 book has a set of 5 articles from DBP&D on 'Faults and 
> Defaults' (Nov 1996 - Apr 1997), which elaborates on the other article. 
>  I'm not certain, but my impression is that the scheme has been largely 
> discarded.  ...

Maybe it's largely discarded, and I don't have those articles anymore, but one thing that I remember that intrigued me was McGoveran's question about whether multiple relational results mightn't be useful, sorry I forget just how he put it.

p Received on Mon Mar 20 2006 - 00:15:08 CST