Re: On what OLAP can and what OLAP can't

Bob Badour wrote:

> That's inevitable when a crank and an ignorant converse.
What's inevitable is that an over the hill Fraud places himself as a knowledgeable source of character judge when he was exposed as being an ignorant of several concepts he tries to advocate.

> Looking
> > back, I can see myself in years gone by being on either side of the
> > discussion, at different points in my career.
>
> And your point would be?
His point is that he suspects a communication problem when it is not. Idiot.

> > I can, if you like, shed some light on what the data architect might have
> > been trying to show you.
>
> He was using imprecise terms to say laughable nonsense.
Won't argue on that. Even Frauds are right sometime.

> I am sure there
> are plenty of ignorants out there eager to interpret the oracle for us,
> but in the end, it's all still gibberish.
Interpret is not exposing. I shared a conversation I had last week when auditing a datawarehouse system down to its knees(response time, correcteness of results) may trigger feedback, responses ideas. I am positive this is not an uncommon situation or conversation. If you consider as gibberish anything that does not integrate in your limited field of perception, then you are disqualifying too much information to pretend your scientific approach to data management is anything else but an empty shell. Oservation is a part of science. Including data management.

[Snipped]

> > Since the DA isn't here, I can't rephrase what you were trying to
> > communicate to the DA for that person. However, it's just vaguely possible
> > that the DA had been through the same learning curve you have, and had
> > grown to appreciate multidimensional modeling in addition to relational
> > model, rather than instead of it.
>

> > If you are seeking to genuinely understand how multidimensional modeling and
> > star schema design might be genuinely useful additions to your own set of
> > tools and methods, the discussion could go one way. If, on the other hand,
> > you are merely looking for validation of your own opinions, and want
> > justification for disregarding anything novel (to you) that the data
> > architect might have said, then the discussion is likely to go nowhere, as
> > many prior discussions in c.d.t. have.
>
> Multidimensional modeling and star schemas have one advantage: the
> industry hopped on that buzzword-laden bandwagon a few years ago so a
> lot of applications and tools expect star schemas and lack facilities to
> handle anything that doesn't fit that exact mold.
Multidimensional modeling has the advantage of concentrating flexibility of querying capabilities into an applicative repository. You could consider it as an applicative repository of querying capabilities. Nevertherless, it can not compensate loss of integrity and can not be placed on the same level of abstraction than RM. Multidimensional is mainly an implementation model not a logical model.

> > Before I invest the time and effort at trying to summarize and explain the
> > benefits of star schema design, I want to have some inkling about whether
> > it's a waste of time.
>
> Unless you can point to some brilliant theory that makes star schemas
> particularly useful, it's a waste of time.
Star schemas implementations have one advantage. As aggregates are *physically* stored, querying response times are improved on poor SQL DBMS implementations (breaking at the same time independence). That is the only one.

> > I will comment on a few things above:
> >
[Snipped]
>
> He is?!? Since when? Next you are going to try to tell us Won Kim is
> worthy of respect.
Won't argue on that. Even Frauds are right sometime.  

[Snipped] Received on Fri Sep 08 2006 - 11:16:06 CEST