Re: storing survey answers of different data types

On Apr 24, 6:01 am, paul c <toledobythe..._at_oohay.ac> wrote:
> Joe Thurbon wrote:
>
> ...
>
> > Suffice to say, I was following you until you brought him up. What would
> > Mott's Clamato man think?
> > ...
>
> I guess that television ad' was from so long ago that most people don't
> remember it.  An amateur inventor pitches his idea to a Mott's exec,
> it's a device that attaches to the kitchen faucet to dispense the juice.
>   The very incisive exec scoffs and asks sarcastically: why stop there?
>   Why not just fill the central water supplies with clamato juice?  The
> crackpot replies: "boy, you guys really think big!".  It often seems to
> me that the db field is so easily stumped by small problems that turn
> into minor crises, eg., the so-called view updating problem has been
> lingering for years now, if it is really a problem it effectively means
> that Codd's model is broken.  I think the Mott's exec would have said if
> the theory doesn't suit the purpose, change the theory.

Well, you can get a lot of mileage out of the theory... I think that it's not a binary distinction between a model being 'broken' or 'unbroken', it's more of a spectrum between things that are easy and hard. You can get a lot of mileage out of the RDBMS, and if/when you get to a point where things start to look difficult ( "Boy, I don't immediately see a way to do this"), check to make sure that you really understand the theory, you're "doing it right" -- implementing a good solution for the problem, and if that fails, maybe you can fudge something other than the database, because the database is doing so much else for you.

But if you decide that the view updating problem means that Codd's model is broken, therefore should be abandoned, what are you going to replace it with?

In other words, if your car runs a little rough at 60 MPH, are you going to abandon the car and start walking? Are you improving the situation then? Received on Fri Apr 24 2009 - 16:19:45 CEST