Re: Peter Chen and Charles Bachman

"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote:

>"Dawn M. Wolthuis" <dwolt_at_tincat-group.com> wrote in

[snip]

>Although some ER proponents argue for normalizing data in an ER model, many
>others do not. I tend to argue against normalizing data in the ER model.
>In particular an entity, an order, can contain line item data that is
>multivalued, or in 1NF parlance a "repeating group". If you implement in
>CODASYL you'll do one thing with it, if you implement in relational (or
>"tabular") you'll normalize by decomposition, and if you implement in PICK
>you'll do yet a third thing with it.

     <EG> You may really have to implement the Fourth Lie: "Of course I'll respect you in the morning.", "I'm here from the government and I'm here to help you.", "The cheque is in the mail.", and "I denormalised for performance."

     I thought PICK was based on the CODASYL way. If not, what is the differentiation please?

[snip]

>I don't know what people who don't like ERD's do for analysis. When I first
>joined this forum, there was a lively debate between the OO enthusiasts and
>the regulars about the subject of subject matter expertise. The prevailing
>opinion among the OO enthusiasts seemed to be that there wasn't time for the
>implementors to learn the subject matter, so the best thing to do was to
>design data structures that were subject matter independent.

     An old saying: "There's never time to do it right, but there's always time to do it over." OOP is great, but so is cheddar cheese. I use each as appropriate.

>That's even farther from my way of thinking than your way of thinking is.

     Having just gotten back to this group, I have reading the last month or so in the last few days. Given the current iteration in the neverending battle between Good and Evil (relational/SQL vs. PICK (or the reverse if that suits your biases), I have an overdose of PICKism. Thank goodness that Dawn finds "post-relational" being as stupid a term for PICK as most of us do. (If the first thing that someone tells me about Their Way is a lie, it does something for their credibility, something very bad.)

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:

     I have preferences.
     You have biases.
     He/She has prejudices.