Re: TRM - Morbidity has set in, or not?

Marshall Spight wrote:
> Frank Hamersley wrote:
>

>>Is there any veracity in _any_ of the claims made by _any_ of the parties?
>>
>>Given lots of mud gets flung as the discussion proceeds so I wondered if
>>there was any corroborative or contrary sources.

Funny thing that. Although the patents are written in language that tries to be all-encompassing (maybe all patents these days try to claim every possible technique - I don't know), the central idea does seem obvious (storage adjacency used for column order with links to relate values in 'rows' versus the typical impl'n that uses storage adjacency for relating values in rows and links for ordering). Still, I've seen a few implementations towards similar ends and at one time followed a lot of the literature and I've never actually seen anybody implement or describe anything quite like it, so even though it seems obvious it doesn't look mainstream traditional to me. But one person couldn't survey the whole field and it seems plausible to me that somebody else has done similar, perhaps in programs that aren't involved with conventional databases, even though I can't point to such an effort.

> Various parties, including FP himself, have on occasion said, "oh no,
> it's much more than that" but they don't back it up at all, so their
> claims
> are unevaluable.
> ...

I believe he is bound by some non-disclosure agreement and since the business involved has gone awry, he is stuck. So you can hardly blame him except perhaps for not having the foresight to sign a NDA that had no expiry date.

What is more mysterious to me is whether all the secrecy is because TRM is not entirely patentable, eg., is it more trade secret than novel technique?

> Michael Stonebreaker has a small company that is selling a column
> store; it looks quite interesting.
> ...

After a promising start many years ago, Stonebraker has long been a tech salesman for various fads. Is that the column store out of MIT dating from the early 1990's?

> As an aside, I note that Mr. Pascal spends quite a lot of time telling
> us
> how smart and logical he is, ...

Well, I've read at least a few hundred pages written by him and although I didn't understand parts of it, I can't recall him boasting about himself, not even once.

> and how all of his opponents are stupid,
> ignorant, and illogical. He also spends a lot of time name calling, and
> even making fun of other people's names! ...

 From what I've read, most of his "opponents" haven't got the foggiest of what he is talking about.

> I wonder: has he ever
> accomplished anything that would back up his claims? Has he ever
> published a proof? Published a paper in a peer-reviewed journal?
> Made use of any formal methods? Written any software? To my
> knowledge, he has published two books, one of them "Practical
> Issues is Database Management". Which was a fine book, although
> the last person I leant it to noted "you could hear the axe grinding
> on every page."
> ...

Yes, he has performed a public service, mostly without gain to himself whereas many of the "opponents" puff fools-gold because it is in their own interest to make systems bigger and more grandiose than they need to be. IT being a modern-day goldrush is full of carpet-baggers always promising more than they can deliver. Some chemistry and other Ph.D's got into programming because there's more money in it plus they were second-rate in their first field anyway. Peer review means less and less now and is often a joke - more like a cover to protect "jobs for the boys". CS credentials are usually a tawdry peerage - most of those "peers" should demand refunds of their tuition fees but only a few have the brains to see this and even fewer have the guts.

p Received on Fri May 12 2006 - 23:55:55 CEST