Re: separation of church and state?

On 6 oct, 18:58, paul c <toledobythe..._at_ooyah.ac> wrote:
> Roy Hann wrote:
> > "paul c" <toledobythe..._at_ooyah.ac> wrote in message
> >news:hoONi.6504$_K.2827_at_pd7urf3no...
> >> It seems a little doctrinaire to me. I can agree that the "result isn't a
> >> relation" but on the other hand a user could see such a result without
> >> knowing that "ORDER BY" was involved and not be faulted for taking it to
> >> be a relation.
>
> > What user ever would? Users never see relations. They see various kinds of
> > reports (using the word "report" to mean anything users get to see).
>
> > Roy
>
> I can buy that relations aren't visible to the naked eye but I'd say
> that users certainly do see representations of relations (even if the
> representations are called tables) and the relations are visible in the
> mind's eye. Maybe if the word "understand" is substituted for "see" it
> makes more sense, after all, predicates aren't physically visible either
> but users do need to understand them.
The way I look at it is that Date tries to remind us of the mathematical nature of relations and that a relation which is a abstract conceptual is not meant to be seens but to be reprensented. It is true that it does seem doctrinaire but at the same time it does make sense. Whether one user does *see* a mathematical function (ex: f(x)) seems as an unappropriate verb to to use: he just represents it at some point in time. The user however may *see* the symbological representation of the function (ex: f(x) = 2x+1) or he sees the graphical representation of the function (in this case a line). imho... Received on Sun Oct 07 2007 - 13:28:54 CEST