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

>Alfredo, exactly which part is wrong?

This:

>>>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.

But the values might be as complex as you want.

>> >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.

>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.

>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.

Regards
  Alfredo Received on Mon May 01 2006 - 02:18:50 CEST