Re: Generalised approach to storing address details

From: Rob <rmpsfdbs_at_gmail.com>
Date: 12 Dec 2006 14:10:15 -0800
Message-ID: <1165961415.178049.198670_at_73g2000cwn.googlegroups.com>


Cimode wrote:
>
> RM was created on the first place in the perspective of getting away
> from the sterile hierarchic paradigm of computing...A way for breaking
> the vicious circle in which lots of idiots try to get us back...
>

Entirely false and self-serving.

First, RM was created in "reaction to the escalating costs required for deploying and maintaining complex systems". It had nothing to do with 'getting away from the sterile hierarchic paradigm of computing' and everything to do with providing a logical, declarative data model which would allow "programmers to describe the information they wanted and to leave the details of optimization and access to the database management system". [Double quoted text from:

http://www.acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=299

]

Second, 'sterile hierarchic paradigm of computing' is your opinion, nothing more. In point of fact, everything the average computer enduser/knowledgeworker uses (besides spreadsheets and SQL responses) is hierarchical: menus, org charts, table of contents, the Web. Sterile for you perhaps, but effective for the rest of us.

If one objective of database experts is to broaden access to databases and use of relational technologies, perhaps the experts should show some concern for making such access and use available through interfaces (like hierarchical) that are more intuitive to non-experts instead of branding as 'idiots' anyone who cannot master modeling with relations, formulating queries in SQL or making sense of unnormalized SQL extensions (i.e., query responses).

Your vitriol sounds to me like job security: As long as the gcd (greatest common denominator) interface to RDBs and RDBMEs (engines, servers) remains SQL, you will be in great demand. Considering that a small business could deploy a competent RDBMS for less than $5K and the annual cost of one SQL expert is upwards of $250K, one has to regard the SQL Meta Meta Model as the most significant obstacle to the widespread DIRECT use of database technology by those who are not SQL experts.

Rob Received on Tue Dec 12 2006 - 23:10:15 CET

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