Re: Generalised approach to storing address details

JOG wrote:
> Rob wrote:
> > 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.
>
> With all due respect, this is absolute nonsense and I vociferously
> disagree. It has been proven in numerous research studies that menu's
> use is deletrious if nesting goes above two levels. Table of contents
> are just simulating their paper equivalents - Hypertext has shown that
> this is inferior to other methodologies. The Web is absolutely not
> hierarchical /by definition/. File systems are the only real vestige of
> hierarchy left and are a well known and are rapidly changing to add
> none hierarchical features - tagging, meta-data, search and database
> driven structuring.
>
> Imprisoning users in Hierarchy and the simulation of paper in a more
> powerful media, are anchors round the neck of IT users that you would
> do well to not perpetuate.
>
> >
> > 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).
>
> Very little in the world is hierarchical. Even the oft cited hierarchy
> of biological taxonomy, breaks down at several points. As a
> contemporary example witness the collapse of Yahoo style directory
> hierarchies for web browsing, which rapidly became unsupportable and
> unusable, and the total domination of pure search in the form of
> google.

While I agree with some of what you wrote here, JOG, (di-graphs are my favorite model for presenting information and also for modeling stored data for software development), it is a bit ironic that your opinion about hierarchical data was presented to me with > and > > and lack of a > indicating a hierarchy. cheers! --dawn

> >
> > 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.
Received on Wed Dec 13 2006 - 14:41:27 CET