Re: Date, Darwen, Pascal and the alternative to Nulls in the RM

"mAsterdam" <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org> wrote in message news:4421e189$0$24373$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl...
> It doesn't make sense to store [soc number, age].

Actually it equally might or might not. What is a sentence into which these two values alone can be inserted to make a meaningful statement about the enterprise of interest (to "make sense")? If the table is dead_employees and the sentence is "the employee with social insurance number <soc number> was <age> years old when they died", then it makes sense. One might not be able to conclude very much else without more information, but whether that is a problem or not depends on the enterprise of interest. On the other hand it is enough to answer questions like: how old was such-and-such an employee when they died? Is so-and-so dead? What is the average age of death among employees? How many employees have died. And so on; all pretty sensible derivations from the limited facts.

> You know it, I know it. Why doesn't it?

Your premise is false.

Roy Received on Thu Mar 23 2006 - 10:06:02 CET