Path: news.f.de.plusline.net!news-fra1.dfn.de!news-ber1.dfn.de!news-lei1.dfn.de!newsfeed.freenet.de!newspeer1.nwr.nac.net!border2.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!pd7cy1no!pd7cy2no!shaw.ca!pd7urf3no.POSTED!53ab2750!not-for-mail X-Trace-PostClient-IP: 24.84.208.66 From: paul c User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.7 (Windows/20050923) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: comp.databases.theory Subject: Re: Discovering new relationships References: <1172931422.088076.208900@n33g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> In-Reply-To: <1172931422.088076.208900@n33g2000cwc.googlegroups.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 25 Message-ID: Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 15:46:17 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 64.59.144.75 X-Complaints-To: abuse@shaw.ca X-Trace: pd7urf3no 1172936777 64.59.144.75 (Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:46:17 MST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 03 Mar 2007 08:46:17 MST Organization: Shaw Residential Internet Xref: news.f.de.plusline.net comp.databases.theory:42925 Cimode wrote: > On 3 mar, 01:14, paul c wrote: > ... > << My attitude is that talking about kinds of data is verging on the > mystical > (if we are not talking about operators that apply to only certain > "kinds" of data). >> > While building a system once in data mining perspective, I designed a > database with the help of a team of statisticians. They brought to my > attention the fundamental aspects of differences between discrete > variables and continuous variables and the differences in computing > treatment such differences imply. In a fundamental design > perspective, this did not have any impact on the primary operators > used but rather helped me guide better the design process...Tere were > some moment I seriously wished some additional operators would exists: > what about an operator that would allow for instance to return the > product between cardinalities? That would be useful in calculations? > I find that hardly *mystical*... > ... Nor do I. That's why I mentioned operators. The mysticism goes away and we get down to brass tacks when we start talking about just what it is we want to do with the data. p