Re: Something new for the New Year (2008).

From: TroyK <cs_troyk_at_juno.com>
Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2008 15:33:01 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <d371b81d-3f7a-4675-b1f8-d20d1c5f2fcd_at_m34g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>


On Jan 3, 11:52�am, Rob <rmpsf..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 2, 8:19�pm, Marshall <marshall.spi..._at_gmail.com> wrote:> On Jan 1, 2:45 pm, Rob <rmpsf..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > If you have a chance, please take a look on my website at this page:
>
> > >http://www.sfdbs.com/toplevel/fasttrack/fasttrack.shtml
>
> > > You will see a completely new way to use foreign keys
> > > to represent relationships in relational databases.
>
> > What is wrong with the existing way?
>
> When it comes to information technology, "right" and "wrong" are
> dangerously loaded terms. (Unless one technology fails to produce the
> "right" result.) A more appropriate axis for comparison is
> productivity, sometimes measured in net revenue per employee. The
> downside of "the existing way(s)" is that knowledge workers and
> application programmers of ordinary computer skills cannot seem to
> master database design, querying and response interpretation without
> expensive SQL/database experts. If we could makes database usage
> second nature to these individuals, the total cost of database
> ownership would be lower, and therefore, productivity higher. This
> representation is a first step in that direction, but the whole SQL
> database paradigm needs to be rethought if we are going to both
> preserve investments in current databases and database practices, and,
> open the benefits of database usage directly to a wider, less trained
> (and therefore less expensive) workforce.
>

<snippage>

OK, since my other contributions to this thread are mere smart-assery, I'll give you a quick thought in all seriousness...

I think that a more fruitful approach to making db implementations accessible to non-db-expert users would be to work on a means of querying at the conceptual layer. (This assumes that one accepts the premise that the conversion from conceptual to logical introduces complexity that these non-expert users can't deal with).

It seems that the introduction of a new class of relations/tables (those "structure" parts) that the user needs to take pains to ignore (or you must take pains to hide) is going in the wrong direction.

TroyK Received on Fri Jan 04 2008 - 00:33:01 CET

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