Re: foundations of relational theory?

Marshall Spight wrote:
> "Tony Gravagno" <g6q3x9lu53001_at_sneakemail.com.invalid> wrote in message news:jfgrpvkaluu7ad4g5ube55f397babruo16@4ax.com...
>
....
> 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.

Can a declaration enforce a really complex oonstraint? And if so, does the declaration begin to look like a procedural statement? For example, even on a simple level, how would you declare that Field1 has to be conditionally based on Field2 and Field3, eg, procedurally, if(field3=='') field1=field2 else field1=field3.

Chandru Murthi

> 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.

Very true.

>
> Marshall
>
>
Received on Tue Oct 28 2003 - 17:30:58 CET