Re: Lucid statement of the MV vs RM position?

David Cressey wrote:

> "dawn" <dawnwolthuis_at_gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1145916318.980049.203040_at_j33g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>

>>David Cressey wrote:

>>Because the system is so language based, this concern is much like a
>>concern for any list that a person might give in a sentence.  It is
>>often clear whether the order was important or not.  When it is not
>>clear, ask someone.  I realize this is a less than satisfying answer,
>>but it is the situation.

Ahh, the elixir. It is language based so it's like english and we don't need all those nasty programmers. It's imprecise but pickies like it that way. It makes their lives easier if the users have no way to express what is wrong with the product. EWD 898

> A database isn't a substitute for e-mail or voice mail. It's a more formal,
> and more predictable way of sharing data.
> Lack of clarity that can quickly be resolved orally in a face to face
> dialogue can be disastrous in the kinds of environments where databases are
> relied upon.

What?!? It's all only an illusion?!? Say it ain't so!

>>>The answer I keep getting from Pickies is (after I've stripped away the
>>>veneer) seems to be:  "It's all in the mind of the programmer!  Isn't

>>>wonderful!"
>>
>>The control of whether something implemented as a list is a list, bag,
>>or set is addressed by developers, but the answer of which is in the
>>mind of the end-users too.
>>
>>
>>>My response is that it's not wonderful.
>>
>>I agree that it is not tight.  I wish I could come up with any time
>>this has botched things up.

> Oh, come on! This has been botched up thousands of times in the pre database
> era, by people using FORTAN, COBOL, or what have you. If you never ran
> across any of those cases, I wonder why. If Pick is somehow ineffably
> different from classical programming languages, in a way that prevents this
> confusion, while still allowing things to be "loose", then I would think at
> least one practitioner of Pick would have been able to explain it to the
> rest of the world.

In the absense of intellectual honesty, one has no hope of ever learning. I think the exchange above shows how clearly you waste your time.

Note the immediate fall-back to imprecise terminology like "tight". She will not venture from the comfort of her illusions or delusions as the case may be.

>>>If you think that keeping the ultimate key to
>>>decoding the data ought to be in the mind of the programmer,  then I

>>>you should stay away from databases.  Either that or hang a suitable

>>>sign in front of any databases you have built.
>>
>>I really do understand why you say that.  It is very frustrating that I
>>have not yet been able to explain it.

It's hard to explain an hallucination or an axiom. What the self-aggrandizing ignorant fails to realize is she concludes her axioms, and her axioms are false. Received on Tue Apr 25 2006 - 02:15:31 CEST