Re: Columns without names

"JOG" <jog_at_cs.nott.ac.uk> wrote in message news:1158411539.868369.75730_at_i3g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
>
> David Cressey wrote:
>> "JOG" <jog_at_cs.nott.ac.uk> wrote in message
>> news:1158372047.852132.130270_at_p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > These are potentially different statements to those such as "There is a
>> > person, Sally" because the latter is stating "There is a person where
>> > name:Sally". The values held in the former assertions have no
>> > discernable attribute name - rather than a tuple such as {
>> > (name:Sally), (age:28)} I just have { (7) } or { (b) }.
>>
>> Actually, "7" is the name of a number, and not the number itself.
>
> Is it? Could you expand on that, as I'm not sure there isn't a
> difference? Is that the same for the letter b? I think at some level I
> am mulling over the concept of atomicity (or non-decomposability) here,
> and how a domain might be defined as a relation itself.
>

"7" is one possible representation for a number. "00000111b" is another possible representation for the same number.

"b" is one possible representation for a letter. "98" is another possible representation for the same letter; "0x62" is another.

I don't think a domain can be defined as a relation because the definition would be circular. On the other hand, you could possibly have a domain of relations. Received on Sun Sep 17 2006 - 03:13:49 CEST