Re: RDBMSs timeline poster

On 17/09/2012 11:40 PM, Erwin wrote:
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> Tsssssssssss. When an academic of the Felix Naumann level produces an overview of something,

then he doesn't strive for that overview to be complete, of course. Quite understandable.
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> Or wait. Hey. I got it.

> The purpose was intentionally to produce a historical overview of all the _failed_ attempts at implementing
 > the relational model.
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> Or the purpose was a bit more mundane.Just a tool to be used in the masturbation jobs
> that academia serves when prostituting itself to the industry in order to get funding in return.
 > Give them something nice and neat to show that has their name and brand on it.
> From _that_ perspective, omitting certain things certainly becomes totally understandable.
> Guaranteed absence of return means guaranteed absence of effort.
> The truly academic spirit.
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>> About the creek and river: as far as I can tell they have no further meaning other then perhaps a
 > vague allusion to a lost paradise.
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> "Lost". yeah. I think I'd better stop it here.

Right, it is incomplete and I'd call it disgraceful. If they wanted to be accurate, they should have called it genealogy of sub-relational dbms' or suchlike.

Even if they had included Dataphor etc., a charitable reading of the 'relational' adjective would be 'somewhat relational'.

Still, relational theory itself isn't yet fully developed, witness the lack of understanding of updating theory and other things such as the widespread impression that transactions are part of relational theory when the issue is actually how can relational theory support transactions. And all of the mentioned products have other purposes (whether misguided or not) besides just implementing some aspect or other of relational theory, for example varying ideas about just what 'impedance mismatch' means. (My no doubt oddball attitude is that it's kind of moot - all it needs to mean is that Codd's attitude about needing only a sub-language is sensible, as long as the host language supports the same types.)

I imagine the poster will go up on some cubicle walls, just like the big one from many years ago that pretended to categorize normalization. Lots of insecure people who can't explain either like those posters because sometimes they impress people who know even less. When asked "what does it all mean?", I've heard people duck the question with the answer "read the poster!".

I could sort of forgive the normalization poster because as I recall it was put out by a commercial outfit. Maybe O'Reilly? I'm not sure.

A couple of years ago I checked a couple of university libraries, both large places with tens of thousands of students. Simon Fraser University had one copy of TTM 3rd Edition which looked like it had never been opened. University of British Columbia didn't even have one copy! If other universities are similar it's clear that they are also way behind the important curve. I've met Computer Science professors (two) who had never heard of predicate calculus! These days I look at anything of a database nature that comes out of so-called academia with extreme suspicion. Received on Wed Sep 19 2012 - 05:25:49 CEST