Re: Dreaming About Redesigning SQL

"Christopher Browne" <cbbrowne_at_acm.org> wrote in message news:bn17ct$s92pa$1_at_ID-125932.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Quoth "Anthony W. Youngman" <thewolery_at_nospam.demon.co.uk>:
> > "Think different". Think Engineering, not Maths. And for $DEITY's
> > sake stop going on about science. Unless you can use set theory to
> > predict the future, relational has nothing to do with science ...
>
> When the engineers do things that don't depend on successful
> application of "maths," they wind up doing irrational things.
>
> When the engineers go through their schooling, they may not bother
> learning much about the theory behind what they do, but that merely
> demonstrates that their focus is away from the theory. It does not
> mean that the theory is not there.
>
> When they apply formulae, they apply formulae that had to be
> established by some form of theory.

Not always. Engineers commonly applied Kramer's Rule before it was proved, which is not to say they ignored matrix algebra or continued to apply anything after it was proved to not work.

> You seem to be suggesting that there oughtn't be any reason for things
> to be as they are. While I can imagine mature engineers considering
> it of no personal value to study theory, I _can't_ see them having
> that much disrespect for it.

This engineer observes that engineers enthusiastically apply theory all the time. Received on Mon Oct 20 2003 - 20:18:31 CEST