Re: Little design mistakes that can be easily avoided (2): Listenning to CELKO (and CELKO alikes)
Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 01:38:22 GMT
Message-ID: <ioq6i.230746$6m4.133597_at_pd7urf1no>
-CELKO- wrote:
>>>Regarding the list above, I only think that it is the rare database that can tolerate multiple perceptions or multiple realities. <<
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> LOL! The advantage of mono-theism -- the universe makes sense!
That comment seems mis-directed. It is like confusing existentialism with logical existence in say the framework of FOL. I would say the only application of philosophy that is germane to this group is perhaps mathematical philosophy but only to the extent that it can be mimic'ed by elementary digital machines.
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>>>Lots of db's are subjected to those, but I would say they usually don't tolerate them very well. To be a practical db, I think it's implicit its context is one common agreed understanding or interpretation among its users. <<
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> Let me give you an example. The Chinese are an ancestor worship
> culture. Western Civilization is not. The concept of "Your father's
> oldest brother's second oldest son" is "cousin" in English and a
> special word in Chinese. With obligations to them.
>
> The place you see categories making a difference is in OLAP and DW.
> My favorite story is a consulting job I did with a shoe company. The
> manufacturing side of house saw "steel toed work boots" as one
> category. The marketing side of the house saw "LARGE SIZE steel toed
> work boots" as things to sell to construction workers and "SMALL SIZE
> steel toed work boots" as things to sell to Goth Girls, without no
> real market for for the US 8-12 size range.
>
These may be examples, but not of what I'm talking about. I am quite certain that the shoe database would be quite useless to both the factory and marketeer mgmt unless they agree it is about shoes and the attributes of shoes that both parties are interested in manipulating. As for the Chinese example, it is rare that a concept ever means exactly the same thing in two different languages. ...
>>>I don't think there is such a thing as a physical key. <<
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> Stand in a physical position. Does it uniquely locate you? YES! Can
> I grab you and declare "He is here, Officers!!" as I turn you over to
> the police? Yep!
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> Now I might want to have a (longitude, latitude, elevation, timestamp)
> triple for your exact location in time and space or I can be a bit
> vague (he was blind drunk and face down on the floor of the Pink Pussy
> strip joint on the evening of 2007-05-30).
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> The co-ordinates are a trusted encoding with external verification
> (GPS). Like wise the timestamp is a trusted encoding with external
> verification (UTC).
> ...
p Received on Mon May 28 2007 - 03:38:22 CEST