Re: How to efficiently make an "history" ?

Joe Celko wrote:

> Secondly, SQL has no "fields" -- tables are made of rows, rows are
> made of columns and columns hold values. This is important!!

Kesako wrote:

> I didn't know rows were made of columns. I thought that tables were
> made of rows *and* columns.

It just feels a bit weird to talk about a single row having columns -- it can't really be a column until its height is at least 2, right? I sometimes feel more at ease talking about the "attributes" of a specific row, instead of its columns -- but by doing so, I risk being distracted from the fact that my real data objects are sets of rows, organized into tables with columns, where even an empty set has a full complement of columns! Thus, a column can have any height greater than or equal to 0. :-)

> Why are you seem allergic to the "field" word? We both seem to
> understand what it means and I don't see a possible confusion with
> something in SQL.

No confusion with anything in SQL, no, but a very dangerous confusion with the concept of "records" having "fields" in data files. This, in my opinion, is the real reason for never saying "field" in the context of relational databases.

-tih

-- 
The basic difference is this: hackers build things, crackers break them.