Re: The MySQL/PHP pair

"Kenneth Downs" <firstinit.lastname_at_lastnameplusfam.net> wrote in message news:069bmc.sb3.ln_at_192.168.10.210...
> Dawn M. Wolthuis wrote:
>
> > OK, I didn't understand what you were referring to as "adding
automation".
> > It sounds like you are referring to virtual and/or materialized
> > user-defined
> > data, virtual fields, derived data, UDFs, stored procedures, etc. These
> > are
> > all automated by way of "code" specified in attributes as metadata,
> > right? So your "USER-SUPPLIED" columns are supplied with the metadata
> > having no "code" other than name, size, type, desc, or whatever, where
> > your "AUTOMATED" have additional "metadata" to derive the value from
> > whereever, rather than requiring that the data be stored directly
> > (maybe?).
> >
>
> We are pretty much on the same page on all points except one. The
> specification of automated columns must not contain code, they must be
> scalar. The two working points to define scalar (or atomic) in this
> context are:

The specification IS code, but the value is scalar, right?

> 1. Must not require evaluation according to the rules of any programming
> language.
>
> 2. Must not require parsing by the engine built to use it.
>
> So if you have some automatic view builder working with a data dictionary,
> the formula for Extended_Price cannot be the expression "price * qty", it
> must be the scalar values "MULT","PRICE","QTY" with the assumption that
all
> columns are in the same table. In the same vein, an aggregate for an
order
> total might be "SUM","ORDER_LINES","LINE_FINAL_AMT".

Isn't this just a specified "language" so that there is some interpreter that determines that it needs to multiply the price times the quantity? I think I'm still missing something. I don't see a great deal of difference between the words "multiply" "price" and "quantity" being in an xml documet that is interpreted by some software to mean that it should multiply the price times the quantity, or encoding this same thing in COBOL, for example. Either way it is code with an interpreter or compiler so that the multiplication is executed. Where is your scalar values of "MULT" stored and what software is interpreting it? --dawn

>
> ...and so we return to assembly language ;-)
>
> --
> Kenneth Downs
> Use first initial plus last name at last name plus literal "fam.net" to
> email me
Received on Wed Nov 03 2004 - 22:16:14 CET