Re: relational reasoning -- why two tables and not one?
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:09:20 GMT
Message-ID: <4cMBm.48180$Db2.7019_at_edtnps83>
Bob Badour wrote:
> paul c wrote:
>
>> Bob Badour wrote: >> >>> paul c wrote:
...
>> The label that means what someone wants it to mean instead of what it >> means to everybody else.
>
> In the dbms, the label is merely a name for a relation: no more and no
> less. One might as easily use D as Donor.
>
> I am confused. Are you disagreeing with that?
> ...
Not at all, "D" might even be preferable. But when designing tables as the unmentioned poster was, it is a good idea to be precise so the people in the room who don't know this, aka the small charity, aka the man in the street, can better pin down their requirements. That was surely the starting context in this thread. I'll grant that it's hard for me to put this without sounding as if I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth.
> You refer to mysticism a lot, and I remain unsure what you mean by it.
> Does that make me a mystic?
No. Although I hesitate to talk about literacy, not having been
appointed arbiteer by anybody I know, I will anyway. Being human
encourages the tendency but unlike many you have probably disciplined
yourself to resist the urge to portray the db as being more than it is.
What I resent is the widespread usage of vague and mysterious and
contextual words so that they become innately secretive words, such as
"reality", associating them with simple (db) abstractions, especially
when they generate spurious requirements, as it seemed to in lawpoop's
mind. He as much as said that his "reality" was unique within the
discussion he referred to.
Besides spreading it, it's also human to fall for mysticism. Western
citizens mostly accept the term "freedom of information act" literally
when the typical application involves secret databases and with-holding,
not freedom. The list of such terms is nearly endless and much of
society is inured to the distortions. This doesn't even touch the
rampant pomposity, at one time "lever" was both a noun and a verb, but
the verb is no longer sufficient, most people have some strange need to
make "leverage" into a verb.
I wouldn't argue if you associated my use of "mystical" with your use of that "anthropo..." word I can't spell. Received on Thu Oct 15 2009 - 23:09:20 CEST