Orthogonal Was: Relational vs network vs hierarchic databases

"Dan" <guntermann_at_verizon.com> wrote in message news:8x6ld.14$m36.6_at_trnddc02...
>
> "Dan" <guntermann_at_verizon.com> wrote in message
> news:7a6ld.253$h15.215_at_trnddc07...
> > >
> >>>What does orthogonal mean? Does it mean that the intersecting vectors
of
> >>>relational and performance never ever really intersect? No.
> >>
> >> It means that they are mutually independent.
> >>
> >> It is a rather frequent term in computing science. See this:
> >>
> >> http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=orthogonal%20instruction%20set
> >>
> > Alfredo,
> >
> What the heck.
>
> Here is something I wrote about this subject a while back... apologies
for
> its length.
>
> ** RE: Orthogonality and its definition **
[snip]

A while ago I came up with a humorous definition of "orthogonal" in this forum.
Now I need to ask you something about what "orthogonal" really means in the world of math.

I had thought that two vectors are orthogonal if and only if their dot product is zero(vector).

This sounds like a somewhat more restrictive definition than one the you cited in your long article.

Is the example I cited above wrong? Am I misunderstanding your definition (in mathematics)? In computer science, my introduction to the term "orthogonal" comes from the description of several feature of Pascal: thus records and arrays are both compound types, but they are orthogonal meaning their utility has minimal overlap.

I really am asking for education, and not trying to nit-pick with you. Received on Fri Nov 12 2004 - 22:08:30 CET