Re: The term "theory" as in "database theory"

On Jan 29, 4:32 pm, Lemming <thiswillbou..._at_bumblbee.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> On 26 Jan 2007 13:32:02 -0800, "dawn" <dawnwolth..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Is there a "discipline" or field of study called "database theory"? If
> >so, how does it define itself? What is its scope?
> This is a very good question. No takers yet, though, it appears (me
> included). There again, I consider myself more of a practitioner than
> a theorist, which probably invalidates many of my opinions in this
> group.

Oh, my.

Well, how would we answer the question of "is there a field of study called x?" For some kinds of questions, there is an authority we can consult to obtain an authoritative answer. This doesn't apply for the "is there a field" question; there is no authority to consult. Therefore we must invent some heuristics.

I propose a few different tests:

1. Is there a newsgroup for x-theory?
2. How many hits does Google report for the phrase "x theory"
3. Are there any conferences on x theory?
4. Are there any departments of any universities that reference x theory?
5. Wikipedia article?

Let's tackle these in order:

1. Is there a newsgroup for database theory? For some fields, this might be a bit tricky, because the name might not be obvious. I note that a computability theory newsgroup exists called "comp.theory" which might be hard to find if you were searching for "computability." However, I observe, somewhat self-referentially, the existence of a newsgroup called "comp.databases.theory".
2. Google exact phrase hits. This query:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22database+theory%22

reports half a million hits. Compare with 1.4 million for "game theory"
1.9 million for "number theory", 454k for "order theory". So database theory is discussed more than order theory, but less than game theory.

3) Conferences. Here is the home page for the International Conference on Database Theory:

http://alpha.uhasselt.be/~lucp1080/icdt/

which lists among its founding members such familiar names as Abiteboul, Ullman, and Papadimitriou.

4) University Departments. Here's a directory of them:

  http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Computer_Science/Database_Theory/ Research_Groups/

5) Wikipedia article:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_theory

Not that it's a very good article.

Anyway, given all the above, I am willing to reach the conclusion that,
yes, there is a field of study called "database theory."

As to what its scope is, I am tempted somewhat cynically, to say "XML."
However I think pursuing the above references will give a somewhat more
broad perspective. The edges of such a question are bound to be very fuzzy. For example, to what field does the Prisoner's Dilemma belong? You might expect to say Game Theory, and suppose that I had encountered it at school in the CS or Math departments. However in fact we studied it extensively in the Psychology department, and it was never mentioned as part of my CS degree.

As to Lemming's comment, I will say that I am a practitioner myself; but I play a theorist on TV.

Marshall Received on Tue Jan 30 2007 - 02:58:04 CET