Re: theory and practice: ying and yang
From: erk <eric.kaun_at_gmail.com>
Date: 1 Jun 2005 06:53:09 -0700
Message-ID: <1117633988.992069.42470_at_g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
Date: 1 Jun 2005 06:53:09 -0700
Message-ID: <1117633988.992069.42470_at_g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>
David Cressey wrote:
> When those who know some body of theory deliberately make a design choice
> that the theory doesn't recommend, for reasons that are outside the scope
> of the theory, it can work out well. When those who don't know some body
> of theory design without regard to it, the results are frequently
> disastrous.
And in the case of SQL, from what I know most of the decisions were made to test performance of an RM-like DBMS - not to test the utility of the RM as a whole. It was a limited prototype which soon eclipsed other efforts, for reasons probably related to its superiority over network and hierarchical DBMSs.
- erk