Re: RM and abstract syntax trees

On Nov 12, 9:42 pm, paul c <toledobythe..._at_ooyah.ac> wrote: []
>
> Pointers of either kind are nothing more than implementation devices
> when it comes to the RM. I'm even getting the impression that some
> people think a data design that involves surrogate attributes must
> involve pointers.

No I am saying that too many new Relational Database developeres treat surrogate attributes as if they were pointers.

> This seems to imply that those are the only kind of
> attributes that could do that whereas I would say that as far as the RM
> is concerned, no attributes are ever equivalent to pointers. If one is
> using a dbms that has a feature to generate keys, I don't see why one
> would take that to be a relational feature, don't see why a logical data
> design needs pointers in the first place, don't see what surrogates have
> to do with the RM, don't see what lazy instant gratification has to do
> with logical data design, blah, blah, blah.

You nailed it, "lazy instant gratification".

Surrogates do come into RM at the higher normalization levels, I think.
Can one of the knowledgable theorists correct me here?

  Ed Received on Tue Nov 13 2007 - 21:15:40 CET