Re: Modeling question...

David BL wrote:
> On Oct 24, 10:28 pm, paul c <toledobythe..._at_oohay.ac> wrote:
...

>> It bugs me when people pretend that we have re-produced anything but our
>> own mental creations, I think that is the first step down the mystic
>> slope.  But reason and rationality too can get out of control, as modern
>> history shows.  Does that sound odd coming from an atheist?

In a word, yes, but let me say that I don't mean yes in the same sense that I've accused some posters here of being mystics and colloquial English being what it is, what mystical means to some stranger or other is up for grabs. When I throw that word around, I'm talking about people who are ignoring the purpose of common db apps and the nature and   capability of common processors and memories. I've met many so-called professional computer science experts who are almost totally unaware of what the typical digital computer is good at.

Also, relative to my elementary mathematical understanding he is indeed talking of mystical things, but at the same time I think I detect that he is aiming at a rather grand systematic structure, a superstructure if you like. Whether it is implementable is very much something else. Personally, I'm not too bothered about such musings because my interest in more in finding happy coincidences between applications and what machine instruction sets and electronic physics can imitate expediently, without impairing some interpretation that is ready and useful for humans. For one example - although he didn't emphasize the details, I feel certain that Codd saw how adjacency in machine memory could be exploited as a way to manifest a mathematical relation with low overhead. I have watched while various programming paradigms such as OO or column-based dbms's have discounted machine characteristics and while I wish those efforts no ill will, I do think they have taken on problems that current machines are not much good at. (When Codd talked about "representation" I have no doubt he was talking about both the mind's eye and machine efficiency.) I would hope when anybody, me or somebody else, throws the word "mystical" around, their own limitations are taken as givens, even if they don't acknowledge them up front in a casual forum such as this. Received on Thu Oct 30 2008 - 00:36:31 CET