Re: boolean datatype ... wtf?
Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:51:18 -0300
Message-ID: <4cac7ed7$0$14815$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>
Hugo Kornelis wrote:
> On Wed, 6 Oct 2010 02:44:08 -0700 (PDT), Erwin wrote:
>
>>On 5 okt, 00:53, Hugo Kornelis <h..._at_perFact.REMOVETHIS.info.INVALID>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>On Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:42:50 -0300, Bob Badour wrote:
>>>
>>>>What makes either of those choices logical?
>>>
>>>Hi Bob,
>>>
>>>My first observation is that these three possibilities do not come from
>>>a single domain. Male and female are values from the domain of genders;
>>>unknown is not. So it would be wrong to define a domain with three
>>>values to represent the three possibilities.
>>>
>>>But if unknown is not in the same domain as male and female, then what
>>>is it?
>>
>>From domain boolean ?
>
> Eh? I guess I don't understand what you mean. Why bring up the domain
> boolean at this point in my reasoning? Either I misunderstand what you
> try to say, or you misunderstood what I tried to say.
Hugo, you misunderstand the simplest of things. I added you to my killfile.
Null is an indicator that evaluates to NULL or NOT NULL. ie. it is a boolean.
>>Even Brian acknowledged that NULLs are (what he called) "indicators", >>or iow, boolean flags, or yet iow, 2VL truth values. They say whether >>data is really present yes or no. That sounds very boolean to me.
>
> Probably. But I guess Brian kind of lost me when he wrote that a single
> nullable column has to be replaced by not one but two seperate tables in
> a null-less design.
Brian makes shit up. It's easier to just filter him and be done with it citing Date's _Principle of Incoherence_
>>Now guess what. Would the fact that I think it is better to eliminate >>booleans from a logical database design by vertical decomposition, >>have anything to do with the fact that I also think it is better to >>eliminate nulls from a logical database design by vertical >>decomposition ?
>
> I think I accomodated for the "NULL haters" by also including the
> alternative design with an extra table and no nullable columns.
>>>That's the logic of the first choice. >> >>I think you missed the point about 'logic'.
>
> Well, then I'm sure you can explain exactly when and where I missed the
> point about logic, how you think I went wrong and what I should have
> written.
When you wrote "logical" you meant something else where logic had no bearing whatsoever. I am not sure whether the options you gave were the first 2 things that popped into your head or whether they best matched your limited preconceptions or whether you simply found them aesthetically pleasing; however, logic had nothing to do with your decision process.
> For if you make only this remark without further arguments, it is just
> an unfounded ad-hom attack that adds nothing to the discussion.
I asked my question in the hope you would learn to distinguish logic, the foundation of data management, from internal bias or intuition. I agree with Erwin that you completely missed the point. Received on Wed Oct 06 2010 - 15:51:18 CEST