Re: Interested in a moderated theory forum?

"Costin Cozianu" <c_cozianu_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:buhi7n$hm1gm$1_at_ID-152540.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Marshall Spight wrote:
> >
> > Attempts to advance the state of the art here are generally shot down fast.
>
> No kidding. But if you shoot them down fast, then that's a great service
> you do.

If they are shot down with intelligent counterargument, then yes. If they are shouted down with vitriol, then no. I would say that both modes occur in this forum.

> > That aside, I'll nominate the discussion of atomic updates as an
> > alternative to current-style transactions as an example of an
> > attempt to advance the state of the art through the application
> > of science, or at least math.
> >
> I would nominate that discussion as a good example of half baked ideas,
> for which arguments are made in ignorance and in disconnect with the
> current body of scientific knowledge (transaction theory, google for
> Weikum and Vossen "Transactional Information Systems"), which,
> regardless of the current solutions, has largely and correctly
> identified all the problems that transaction theory needs to address.
>
> Those problems that a new theory of transactions (or theory of databases
> without transactions), have not even been systematically identified and
> specified, much less address by that thread. Had the proposers tried to
> publish their work in an academic settings '''and''' test their theory
> with some real software, I have no doubts a better output would have
> ensued, even if that output might have been a dismissal of their ideas.
>
> It's much like the relation between "The Third Manifesto" type systems
> and the current body of knowledge identified as Type Theory.

Ah, well, that's probably fair. Maybe I was just impressed because I don't know anything about transactions.

Really, I suppose I ought to spend more time reading the serious material I have on my shelf, that I'm part way through:

Haskell: art and craft of functional programming Pierce, Type Theory
Ozsu and Valduriez, Distributed Databases

I will go out on a limb and say I think these sources will meet even your standards. The Pierce book especially. Argh, it's hard slogging through that! But I am making steady progress.

But the usenet is much more recreational than those things. Plus, you have the newsgroups with the pictures. :-)

Marshall Received on Tue Jan 20 2004 - 03:49:49 CET