Re: Interesting article: In the Beginning: An RDBMS history

From: Marshall Spight <marshall.spight_at_gmail.com>
Date: 9 Apr 2006 00:15:55 -0700
Message-ID: <1144566955.532640.159760@i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>

dawn wrote:

> This is a seemingly tiny detail, of course, but it comes up more often
> than one might guess in the RM literature as if it were problematic and
> it just doesn't seem to be in practice. I'll grant I'm not working
> with a strictly RDBMS product (but who is?)

I too have often seen this written down as being a problem. But I haven't ever seen the supposed problem explained.

I want to be clear that I don't think that it's not feasible; it is. It's just that it comes at a cost. You trade notational convenience for useful algebraic properties. I haven't noticed that existing systems care as much for those algebraic properties as they might.

Marshall Received on Sun Apr 09 2006 - 02:15:55 CDT