Re: Terminology question

Talking about terminology, CJ DATE just pulled out a dictionnary...That may prove helpful...Here...

BOOK: The Relational Database Dictionary by C.J. Date

Publisher: O'Reilly
Pub Date: August 2006
Print ISBN-10: 0-596-52798-5
Print ISBN-13: 978-0-59-652798-3

Pages: 122
Slots: 0.5

Hope this helps...

pamelafluente_at_libero.it wrote:
> > Actually, I liked "data source" best of all the terms you proposed. The
> > only way in which that term might be misleading
> ..
>
>
> Thanks all for the nice discussion.
>
> This was my first post here and I was still not aware of the people
> featured by this group. I have taken a look at the posts and got some
> idea ;)
>
> Well I spend around 18 hours a day with debuggers and databases and do
> not devote much time trying to frame (relatively) known things into
> definitions. I like more the inverse approach: prefer to have a working
> experience of things and then, if someone might ask me what is that, I
> may try to make an effort to capure it into a definition. Usually
> * a technical definition does not make any sense if you do not already
> know what we are talking about *
>
> Take for instance all the concept of object oriented programming
> (inheritance, polymorphism, encapsulation, interfaces, etc...). There
> is no way you can get their *real* meaning if you do not apply everyday
> them in some very large project. You only assume to kno: but probably
> you dont.
>
> Take for istance the most basic:
>
> "A logically coherent collection of related real-world data
> assembled for a specific purpose."
>
> if I write the names of my friends on a piece of paper, that would fit
> the above. Bob you would laught at me if I call it a "database".Ah ah.
> Well I could argue that is in fact a dbms because there is also some
> service attached provided by myself. Ah ah. And it is probably smarter
> that any other dbms you could find around, although of limited capacity
> and speed. Well, I could buy more paper and hire a few slaves... Ah ah
>
> Definitions are an arrival point from certain persons, and a starting
> point for other persons.
>
> The first often think that the definition is too narrow. The latter
> often think that it is too generical and could fit many things.
>
> After all a definition is always tautological because based on other
> definitions. In math it is useful to define some (undefined, but
> usually intuitive) assioms and the derive everything from that. But in
> real life we could assume that everything we know is the result of
> working knowledge, and does not require definition. Like we do not
> bother to define axiomatic conceps, we could just assume an intuitive
> comprehension of what we know.
>
> -P
Received on Wed Sep 06 2006 - 09:37:17 CEST