I understand that indexes are just for optimization, but it seems that
their evaluation from a different perspective could be very helpful.
For one thing, better formal reasoning would allow easier query
optimization. For example, materialized viewes are also basically just
a utility for optimization, yet the query re-write systems usually know
about them. We don't have to have special, mat. view specific
operators.
Actually the main reason I even thought of this was because Torsten
Grust, in his PhD thesis "Comprehending Queries," mentions that
something called Paramorphs could be used to allow better reasoning of
indexes (rest of the thesis mainly talks about catamorphs which, as far
as I can tell, are similar to foldr in functional programming).
Clearly I am very confused about this issue. I'm a new comer to
database theory, but even more so to functional programming...I'm
hoping someone can shed some light on this issue.
Received on Thu Oct 06 2005 - 06:46:53 CEST
