Re: citations of nature

"Adrian Kubala" <adrian_at_sixfingeredman.net> wrote in message news:slrnbvmagm.b6u.adrian_at_sixfingeredman.net...
> Dawn M. Wolthuis <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> schrieb:
> > I suspect that most definitions of "database" leave out the user,
> > however, one can certainly tighten the definition to indicate that
> > someone or something must take an action to store and retrieve the
> > data. I prefer the definition without an actor outside of the
> > "machine". (Does the car have an engine even if no one starts or
> > stops it?)
>
> A better analogy is, is an engine an engine if it's not in a car? (Like
> maybe it's part of some abstract art.)

Well you could dismount the internal combustion engine from the vehicle and mount it on a bench and run it to generate electricity. It would still be the same thing except being used in a different context.

> I propose that "database" is meaningless without some counterpart to
> data (a mutator). It's like having a universe without physical laws, a
> turing tape without the machine, or DNA without proteins to read it. You
> can only call these things databases by virtue of the fact that they are
> part of a system and they are the passive part of that system (though in
> other systems, or even in the same system, the same thing may in fact be
> the active part and not a database!).

The data itself must be an integral part of any model of a database

You've only to examine the multiple redundancies that are built into its safeguarding (in an operational sense by an organisation if they are wise) to perceive that the data must contain the critical (and volatile) elements.

Pete Brown
Falls Creek
Oz Received on Wed Jan 07 2004 - 15:50:55 CET