Re: Nearest Common Ancestor Report (XDb1's $1000 Challenge)

Neo wrote:
> The problem is, when I used the term normalized, I meant it in the
> more general sense which can be applied to any data model [replace
> redundant data with refs (system supported links that are unrelated to
> data ie IDs in RM) to the one and only original within db). But I can
> see how the term caused confusion.

I'm really tired of half-baked interpretations of the relational model by you and others of your ilk (vendors of ad-hoc database systems).

> XDb1 doesn't define the general form of normalization. Neither does
> RM. But the general form of normalization applies to all data models.
> I want RM's solution to be normalized in the general sense of the word
> (which apparently is a superset of the 5/6 "normal forms"). Even C. J.
> Date states "the purpose of such reduction is to avoid redundancy" in
> his chapter titled "Further Normalization I: 1NF, 2NF, 3NF, BCNF".

There is no "general form" of normalization. Rather than educating yourself on the issue, you take a summary of the concept (a single sentence in this case) and go off on a ridiculous tangent.

Items like 'john' and 'o' (as in 'john', 'god', 'neo') are values. Non-redundant storage of values is a physical issue. Normalization deals with the logical view of data. Normalization is concerned with information or "facts", not storage of values.

> Redundancy is plainly obvious to me, so we must be working from
> different definitions of normalization. Redundancy makes a solution
> less generic and more prone to problems over a border scope.

This makes no sense. You're just making this up as you go along. Much like your ramblings about the human brain (which are OT in the comp.* branch).

Note: Your challenge is a farce. As I expected, you are just playing tricks to avoid paying out the $1000.

-- 
Lee Fesperman, FirstSQL, Inc. (http://www.firstsql.com)
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