Re: Question on Structuring Product Attributes

On Monday, 18 February 2013 09:09:15 UTC+11, Eric wrote:

> On 2013-02-17, Rob <..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Saturday, February 16, 2013 4:20:01 PM UTC-7, paul c wrote:
>
> >> On 14/02/2013 8:03 PM, James K. Lowden wrote: > SQL was intended, I'm
>
> >> sure you agree, to be a language for deriving logical inferences.
>
> > [omitted text].
>
> [more omitted text]
>
> > Database technology has come a long way since the 1970s when SQL
> > was initially specified, and relational DBMSs do alot more than
> > report-writing. But to suggest that in the 1970s, the authors were
> > interested in "logical inference" requires great poetic license compared
> > to "replacing the report-writer capabilities of IMS", and feels like
> > history rewritten.
>
> To quote from Codd[1970]:
>
> "The adoption of a relational model of data, as described above,
> permits the development of a universal data sublanguage based on an
> applied predicate calculus. A firstorder predicate calculus suffices
> if the collection of relations is in normal form."
>
> I rather think there is a connection between "predicate calculus" and
> "logical inference", yes? So perhaps they should have been interested.

The point is absurd.

Rob's point (as I see it) is that the asylum dwellers rewrite history, as they often do. Charging either the System R team, or the Sequel Team, or the SQL Committee (of old, before they were subverted), with having missing something that is relevant today, which was not a criterion in the 1970's, is simply dishonest.

No one has suggested that there is NOT a connection between the two, or that the subject should NOT be considered. But some people think that if the sky is not black, that means, by some insane "logic" that it must be white. There are no colours in-between, they cannot look upwards. We used to put them in asylums. Now they walk the streets. And write books.

Clearly, one of the indicators of insanity is the inability to discern the abstract from the real. Human beings are capable of contemplating both, and precisely because we can differentiate them. Higher intelligence is in part about the ability to think in theoretical or abstract terms. But one who cannot actually cross over to the real side of the fence and implement something abstract, in a way that works in the real world, is merely a raving lunatic with nothing to demonstrate their existence on the physical plane.

Those who can contemplate the abstract (limited to the fact that it is abstract) *and* specify or implement something physical (specifically *not* limited to the abstract, but limited to the physical) are normal. Not necessarily of higher intelligence.

Those who demand that the physical implementation must be limited to the limitations of the abstract, are lunatics.

Case in point. Date and Darwen and the whole TTM cult keep chanting the mantra that "SQL is broken", "SQL Suffers The Null Problem". Yes, yes, of course it does. The SQL Committee in its hallowed state of specifying absurdity, has ensured that the language will never work *as specified*. Any vendor who implements SQL as a physical platform, has to resolve that absurdity. Some do, eg. Sybase, MS, DB2, so the people who purchase those products and implement applications and databases in those platforms are oblivious to The Null Problem which abstractionists scream is real. Yes, yes, it is a very real problem in the cranium, but not outside it. There is no null problem in the universe or the server or the database or the application.

But 30 years after the null problem was resolved, the cult keeps on chanting the mantra. You can't teach a neurotic that the sky has not fallen in in 30 years, therefore it is not falling in now. They are attached to their "reality", it is what makes them insane, special.

Other vendors implement the Null Problem. Products such as Oracle, which are passed off as "DBMS" and even "RDBMS" "platforms" have the Null Problem. It can't do simple subqueries without cacking itself, but it can do the Null Problem Really Well. If a functioning human being has to implement an application in Oracle, the onus would be on them to resolve the Null Problem demanded by the SQL Committee, present in the platform, and the the absence of it, demanded by integrity (not abstract) of not contradicting oneself. So they would implement standards in both the database, and the application, such that it does not have the Null Problem disease which the platform provides. One is not required to use all aspects of the platform, just because it is there. Thousands of Oracle implementers have done so. They are normal.

And there are many more thousands of Oracle implementers who have *not* done so. They are abnormal. They spend years explaining insane behaviour as if it were normal. Typical of the insane, they will not take responsibility for the disease, they will point out that it an acquired disease, and they infect anything they touch. They have made the insane sane, but that is the act of the insane. In their state, they have failed to make the discernment that normal humans make.

The sane do not enter into arguments with them. They are still chanting their beloved mantra, 30 years after is was resolved. They write books about it.

Cheers
Derek Received on Mon Sep 30 2013 - 02:46:00 CEST