Re: Temporal database - no end date

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Sun, 21 Jan 2007 00:53:33 GMT
Message-ID: <hQysh.3418$1x.57210@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

Marshall wrote:

> On Jan 20, 2:05 pm, "DBMS_Plumber" <paul_geoffrey_br..._at_yahoo.com>
> wrote:
>

>> Many of you, it is clear to me, have abandonned even the pretence of
>>critical reasoning: sacrificing it on the altar of a cult. Well, Date,
>>Darwen, Fabian Pascal et al are really smart people who's
>>pronouncements deserve to be treated with a robust skepticism - not
>>fawning adoration. In my experience useful ideas are useful precisely
>>because they withstand rough handling.

What was that about dishing out but not taking? The use of discrete values in computer systems is not a matter of choice nor is it even relevant. The self-aggrandizing ignorants' ideas do not withstand the very rough handling they deserve. I see no reason to refrain from giving that rough handling.

Perhaps the self-aggrandizing ignorant would like to chastise us for calculating total fertility in fractions while he is at it.

>>  Many of you, on the other hand, seem to be refusing to engage the
>>ideas at all.

>
> Yes, if people disagree with you it's obvious some sort of moral
> flaw on their part. I'm sorry, who was it again who was refusing
> to engage ideas? I forgot already.
>
> I am on public record as having both supported and attacked
> the ideas of Date, Pascal, Badour, and Celko, on different occasions
> (I don't think I've said much about Darwen) so you clearly can't
> mean me. And for me this issue has nothing to do with the
> Lorentzos book because I haven't read it, and hence have
> no opinions on it one way or the other. I am only opposing
> the patently ridiculous idea that a digital representation of
> an analog quantity is somehow impossible, since I do so
> every day.
>
> Marshall
>
> PS. Also, I claim the Zeno argument is irrelevant.

That's a classic for Joe. Not only is it irrelevant--it is wrong. Zeno cannot cause any problem when time is quantized because the paradox relies on infinitely divisible time. Even then, convergence dispells the paradox. Received on Sat Jan 20 2007 - 18:53:33 CST