Re: A database theory resource - ideas

On Mar 16, 5:10 pm, Bernard Peek <b..._at_alpha.shrdlu.com> wrote:
> On 2007-03-16, Marshall <marshall.spi..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Mar 16, 6:58 am, "JOG" <j..._at_cs.nott.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >> So my question to cdt is to ask what /you/ believe the priorities for
> >> such a resource would be?
> >> - which pivotal questions are most misunderstood?
> >> - where does most ignorance lie in our field?
> >> - are there are any crucial topics that you believe it would be useful
> >> to address that I have not listed.
>
> > My suspicion is that such a body of information would be
> > able to grow for a long time. That is, I wouldn't think it
> > would be particularly important to try to identify all
> > the topics up front.
>
> > That said, here are some of my thoughts:
>
> > The purpose of normalization is the elimination of update
> > anomalies, not space savings. (Dammit!)
>
> It's worth dealing with insert and delete anomalies too.
>
>
>
> > A Guide to the Normal Forms. These were hard for me; when
> > I first started reading about them, the best information I could
> > find generally plops you down in the middle of a bunch of
> > fairly abstract statements about functional dependencies etc.
> > and I had a really hard time linking it to anything familiar.
> > It would be cool to have something that lists what all the
> > functional dependencies are, identifies what the important
> > ones are, and focuses on them. (BCNF, anyone?)
>
> Relational theory as a branch of mathematics needs to be covered too. There
> are going to be people for whom that is the correct language to use. That
> has to be another entry point into the documentation.
>
> --
> b..._at_shrdlu.com
> In search of cognoscenti

Agreed. I think this broaches into a broader topic of the benefit of formal methods too, as opposed to sloppy ad-hoccery. Also some sort of vocab-guide seems vital to avoid miscommunication (again which can be linked to). Perhaps mAsterdam would not mind the use of his current collation as a basis for this. Received on Sat Mar 17 2007 - 16:28:04 CET