Re: Operationalize orthogonality

Marshall wrote:
> Tony D wrote:
> > Hmmm ... I tried answering this before, and it appears to have gone
> > down the memory tube. [...]
>
> I *hate* when that happens.
>

Yep. The previous post was a lost work of genius too. Yeah, right.

> > Cost isn't an issue for us here. Efficiency is an implementation issue.
> > Think name spaces, scope and what can appear on either side of the
> > comparison operator.
>
> I think I see. You're talking about the naming issues? If we want
> to sort a relation on attribute a, we have to repeatedly compare
> two "a" values which will have the same name, is that it?
>

Nope. Remember that sentence about the relation operators being able to hand off evaluation of the comparisons ? Say we have (for whatever reason) a structured type; say, an address. The address has elements like "street", "county", "country" etc. If we have a relation called hum, with an attribute called home address. Should we be able to say

     hum where home_address.country = "UK"

(There are two answers to this; both obvious, and both with their own fun consequences.)

• Tony