Re: Shared game-data (was: Storing data and code in a Db with LISP-like interface)

Alfredo Novoa wrote:
> >Alfredo, exactly which part is wrong?
>
> This:
>

Alfredo, thanks for your reply.

> >>>lets just
> >> >discuss first normal form, all attributes are atomic.
>
> This is meaningless and error prone (although very common). First
> normal form says that all tuple attributes hold a single value, and
> this is implicit in the definition of a relation. So first normal form
> is bogus.
>

Hey I'm just using terminology I found in Codd's own papers.In earlier ones he used "simple domain" but he seems to have switch to "atomic" after that.

I won't reiterate the quotes I posted to Bob a few minutes ago.

> But the values might be as complex as you want.
>

Yes logically but in practice they are normalized to "single", "simple", "atomic", "scalar" attributes.

> >> >OTOH game objects contain some atomic types but they also contain
> >> >pointers, other objects, trees, collections ... which is all very
> >> >non-atomic and very non-normalized.
>
> To work with pointers is always painful and they might be eliminated
> with the RM. Trees are very well handled by the RM, and relation is the
> most convenient collection to manage data. Normalization consists in
> the elimination of some database design errors, and it is always
> possible.
>

You could eliminate pointers but at what cost. In some applications performance and not theory conformance is what matters most.

> >Are you saying the RM does not advocate normalization?
>
> No.
>
> >Are you saying first normal form doesn't require atomic data?
>
> Yes. And "atomic data" is a nonsensical term. This was discussed to the
> extenuation in comp.databases.theory.
>

Can you cite some papers on the subject. Meantime I'm ok with it.

> >Are you saying objects used in games, or any OOP, don't need to contain
> >references to other objects, trees or collections?
>
> They don't need to contain pointers. They might refer to other objects
> using values.
>

That extra level of indirection is ok in some applications but not others.

>
> Regards
> Alfredo

Cheers. Received on Mon May 01 2006 - 07:36:58 CEST