Re: So let me get this right: (Was: NFNF vs 1NF ...)

"DBMS_Plumber" <paul_geoffrey_brown_at_yahoo.com> wrote in message news:1108062924.338198.182550_at_f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
> Although it's kind of strange that an extension which implies the
> necessity of certain relations (the relation of all chronons) falls
> within the bounds of "correct interpretation", where (say) domains
> without an equality operator do not.

I'm sympathetic with this position. Type theory is something yet too advanced (at least for me) to understand. So I can't really tell if domains without equality is a good idea. Whereas admitting infinite relations is a very natural step from mathematics perspective.

http://arxiv.org/abs/cs.DB/0501053
demonstrates that relational algebra could be formulated in terms of only two operators which are based upon equality. This can't be achieved without admitting certain infinite relations. It's hard to tell how useful that 2 operation algebra is (especially as it's non-distributive), but at least we've got some resemblance to the "established" algebras in the math field. For one thing, solving equations in 6-operation algebra is a proposition for extreme adventurers only, while equations with only 2 operations seem reasonable. Received on Thu Feb 10 2005 - 22:28:45 CET