Re: Best way to design table to store attributes?

On Jan 24, 6:57 pm, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:

>>> Those are big numbers, and it seems unlikely you really need such an
>>> unwieldy state machine for each row of your table.

then I ask

>> Does anybody have knowledge of the origin of this silly "state
>> machine" argument?

then he wrote

> Yes, of course, we all do. It originated in Patrick's skull as a figment
> of his imagination. I doubt any argument exists beyond that scope.

Oh well, I'm not sure Bob's willing to educate me on this "state machine" business. But I'm willing to read if anyone else wants to dumb Bob's text down for me since I'm willing to accept that I'm so dumb that Bob cannot stoop to my level. So what are we really talking about here?

>At a more basic level, though, are you sure you have correctly modelled
>your problem? 150 independent booleans creates a state machine with
>somewhere around 10^45 states. That's a big state machine. Without any
>sort of transition constraints, that creates a fully connected state
>machine with 10^45 states and somewhere around 10^90 allowable transitions.

Anyone else? Why are we worried about state here? Carl, if you're still reading, why are you writing a state machine? Or are you? Received on Sat Jan 24 2009 - 22:44:16 CET