Re: MV Keys

In article <GHgNf.26120$_S7.24277_at_newssvr14.news.prodigy.com>, brian_at_selzer-software.com says...
> Doesn't the determination of whether a type is scalar or not depend upon the
> universe of discourse?

In that case, scalar-ness is not a property of a type, but a property of the use of a type in a certain context. I'd say that severely reduces the usefulness of the concept (if it *has* any usefulness to begin with:).

> I think that a string is a scalar if any of the
> following statements hold: (1) individual character values don't belong to
> the universe of discourse, (2) the meaning of the individual character
> values aren't directly augmented by the attribute name, (3) the meaning of
> the individual character values aren't augmented by their position in the
> list, or (4) it is only the permutation of character values that has meaning
> with respect to the containing relation. For example, the elements in a
> list of birth dates aren't just dates, they're birth dates;

Speaking of dates, is date a scalar type? Its components (year, month, day) do belong to the universe of discourse in most cases.

-- 
Jon