Re: MV Keys

In article <1141409876.758527.66510_at_i39g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, marshall.spight_at_gmail.com says...
> Again, my couterargument: if sets were really the right way
> to handle ordered data, we'd represent strings as relations
> of (foreign key, position, char).

Isn't this a bit extreme? You seem to be saying here that lists is the right way to handle ordered data, and sets (relations) is the wrong way. Which means that relations almost never should be used; after all, almost all my relvars contain ordered data: ordered by name, or by date, or by importance, or ...

> > I also think that keeping the internals of a DBMS simple is a good
> > idea---for the benefit of the optimiser, if nothing else. It is trivial
> > to implement sets using relations; implementing lists should not be much
> > harder.
>
> Jan Hidders has also made this point on a number of occasions, but
> I don't agree. The thing we most want to optimize for is the
> experience of the user of the language--power, expressiveness,
> whatever you want to call it.

But not performance? Anyway, I don't think we necessarily have to choose either one or the other.

-- 
Jon