Re: SQL for presentation

> > In web applications, the presentation - HTML - is a data structure.
>
>
> HTML is a markup language. I would hesitate to call it a
> structure simply because it has a hierarchic tag scheme.

Doesn't a xml document quailify as a data structure?

> It certainly lacks the rigorous features that the relational model
> calls structure and uses to store and manipulate data.

You hesitate to call a xml document "data structure" because it is not a structure in the relational model?

> > If
> > select statements could make almost any kind of data transformation,
> > why couldn't we use select statements to produce the HTML text?
>
> As a matter of fact, two databases I've worked with do exactly that.

Did you like it?

> > I see a
> > problem in the fact that HTML is hierachial and select statements
> > doesn't seem suitable for returning hierachial results.
>
> This puzzles me; what's difficult about "returning hierachial results?"

A select query returns a list of tuples, right? For me it is not obvoious how to create a xml document from a list of tuples.

> > But what if a
> > relational version of HTML existed, would the select statement be
> > suitable for buildning the GUI too?
>
> No. Select does what select does and GUI building isn't part of
> what select does. Building a BUI requires one to handle request/
> response communications -- and that's certainly beyond what select
> does.

Yes, but a select statement could be responsible for producing a response given the parameters in the request.

Fredrik Bertilsson Received on Wed Jul 05 2006 - 21:47:29 CEST