Re: Date, Darwen, Pascal and the alternative to Nulls in the RM

Paul Mansour wrote:
> Assume one accepts, as I do, the argument against nulls put forward by
> Date et al. Would it be fair to say that at this point in time they
> really don't have a solution to missing information? ...

I think you are right that the solution is missing, as it should be, IMO. Otherwise nothing means anything. I don't accept the arguments on either side of the question. At the same time, I think the various proposals are solutions to other questions which I'm not eloquent enough to express.

If I may display again my inadequacy (which I seem to be very much not alone in having), I do notice that the 'solutions' involve multiple relations and I wonder if this doesn't somehow put the missing info question into the same kind of class as the transitive closure problem.   Not trying to change the subject, just wondering if we aren't talking about the same subject.

Personally, I'm not bothered by the lack of a 'solution' to the supposed 'null problem' because I think 'users' are quite capable of making the interpretations they need to do - they make much harder ones all the time. The closure problem bothers me a lot (personally, it doesn't help me to know that Codd's algebra has been proved insufficient on that score) but not as much as the huge amount of wasted developer energy and user interpretation time spent on 'nulls'. If I may be even more provocative, I think entertaining such questions is a symptom of "Voltaire's Bastards" even though that book doesn't mention Nulls and is basically anti-humanist.

pc Received on Wed Mar 22 2006 - 03:06:33 CET