Re: foundations of relational theory?

Originally posted by Marshall Spight

> "Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001_at_sneakemail.com.invalid> wrote in
> message news:jfgrpvkaluu7ad4g5ube55f397babruo16_at_4ax.com"]news:j-
> fgrpvkaluu7ad4g5ube55f397babruo16_at_4ax.com[/url]...

> > This comes to the argument "guns don't kill people,

> > people kill people". Therefore, don't blame the model for
> data

> > corruption (any model), blame the people who corrupt the data by
> act

> > or omission.

>

> But that leads me to the idea that I want a model that will

> make it hard to make accidental mistakes. I agree that

> a malicious insider is something that no system can defend

> against.

>

> It's important that integrity be enforced at the "bottom"

> level, and not any higher; it sounds like you've got this

> idea covered.

>

> I'd still argue that a declarative integrity enforcement

> system is better than a procedural one. Also, having

> it be centralized (rather than procedural) opens the

> possibility of writing applications in other programming

> languages besides the one the database prefers. Allowing

> only BASIC cuts one off from quite a good deal of recent

> programming language advancements. I saw firsthand

> Pick losing contracts on that basis alone, in the mid-1980s.

>

>

> Marshall

Sorry but I just can't help myself jumping in here - touched a raw nerve.

<rant>PickBasic is brilliant for working inside a Pick DBMS. The two are ideally matched - there's definitely a synergy. In a Pick DBMS environment it's definitely *not* equivalent to BASIC. That Pick should have lost contracts because of it can only have been due to people reacting to the perception of the thing rather than the thing itself. Who's to blame for that? I dunno. Back when PickBasic was first invented it might not have been seen as such a bad name. Can't blame people now though for jumping to the seemingly obvious conclusion that it's similar in power to ordinary BASIC. You would, I think, be surprised at what we can do with PickBasic - especially when it has the role of interacting with the DBMS allied to functions on a web server or the host OS.</rant>

Regards

Mike.

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