Re: RDBMSs timeline poster
Date: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 00:41:13 +0200
Message-ID: <52645c09$0$26906$e4fe514c_at_dreader37.news.xs4all.nl>
On 2013-10-19 13:23:44 +0000, Erwin said:
> Op woensdag 16 oktober 2013 23:35:51 UTC+2 schreef Jan Hidders:
>> ... >> >> >> >> Well, no. Date and Darwin often make excellent points, and I like >> their>> meticulous and clear style, but they mix that with a hubris >> and>> unscientific attitude that I sometimes find hard to digest. Check >> for>> example how rarely they have published peer-reviewed work that >> was>> properly exposed to the critcism of scientific peers. I'm sure >> they>> have good explanations for that,
>
> while cleaning up my mailbox, I came across the following by Darwen :
>
> "Well, I can just about read such material but I have no experience at
> all of writing it. I struggle with [example here], for example. I'm
> reminded of a recent paper by me, Date and Fagin, on new discoveries in
> the field of relational database normalization theory. The discoveries
> were Date's and mine but the paper was written by Fagin and would not
> otherwise have appeared as a peer-reviewed piece in a conference
> journal--the only one I have ever (co)authored."
>
> iow : Darwen is not a scientist (in the sense that academically
> employed researchers are), he knows it and he doesn't pretend otherwise.
The only thing I read here is that he thinks he is not very good at writing ICDT papers, which I immedately believe since writing such technical papers is never easy and ICDT, as one of two top conferences, puts the bar quite high.
And why do you make this rather odd qualification in "scientist in the sense that academically employed researrchers are"? Are you suggesting he does not think of himself as a scientist? Is he not academically employed?
> Also note how his remark bears connotations of the academic world
> systematically denying any work from outside said academic world,
> merely on behalf of things "not being written in the proper style", and
> this sometimes even _despite_ the actual content being both viable and
> valuable, purely scientifically speaking.
This paper actually demonstrates the exact opposite. Date and Darwen had a valuable idea, didn't really have the skills to write a technical paper about it, and so someone in the community (highly respected and in fact quite in the center of it) offered to help them and get the work published at a top forum. And no, he is not claiming all the credit for the paper. How is that "systematically denying any work from outside"? You probably are not going to believe me, but knowing these communities and the people in them quite well I find the suggestion that they are not open to work from outside their communities simply absurd.
>> but there is a reason why the>> scientific process strongly suggests >> that ideas are not taken seriously>> unless they can withstand the >> critical examination of fellow experts.>
> Yup. Presumes a willingness to submit _AND_ a willingness to actually
> review. I contend that academia as a whole has a very serious problem
> in that latter department, whenever the "ideas" originate from "outside
> the reservation" (see EWD1175). Heck, similar complaints were posted
> here very very recently by, who was it, Norbert Paul ? And I suspect
> this wasn't even a case of ideas originating "outside the reservation" !
I've already commented on that elsewhere.
> Complaints like that smack of "the academic peer review process has
> degenerated into the politics of finding the clan that is willing to
> support you".
The landscape of scientific communities is an extremely large one with inevitably a huge variety in quality and openness. So you will need more then a few datapoints to conclude wth some certainty that in general communities have become more closed. In my experience this is not the case, certainly not for most of the communites that I've been in contact with, although I've certainly seen some bad apples.
- Jan Hidders