The Null Problem is a Non-issue

I am looking for tertiary qualified (hopefully before 1980) technical people who understand the RM (not the books about the RM), and preferably who have large implementations of Relational dbs that conform to the RM. I welcome honest mathematicians, academics, and technicians, humans who may argue with a goal of resolution. I have a healthy respect for theory before practice, and robust discussion of theory, but the planet seems to have lost that about ten years ago. The papers have a theoretical basis, but they are immediately useful to practitioners. Knowledge of relational algebra or calculus is not required.

That means the following are specifically disqualified, due to their participation in that mountain of garbage:
- pseudo-mathematicians, pseudo-academics, and pseudo-technicians who:

• argue endlessly without resolution
• have private definitions
• do not understand or value objective truth
• think that C J Date, Joe Celko, Ambler, Fowler, Kimball, R Fagin, or Hugh Darwen (aka Andrew Warden, TweedleDee) have written anything that relates to the RM proper (they have written things that are relevant outside the RM, self-serving)
• TTM groupies need not apply
• think that the RM is "incomplete"
• have no substantial experience implementing RDbs in one or more of: --- Sybase, DB2, Informix, MSSQL
• have problems implementing a pure Relational database in any of the above products
• have surrogate-only data stores
• think that a transaction is "the code that lies between BEGIN and COMMIT"

If you prefer, you can email me at derek dot asirvadem at gee mail dot com.

What I am trying to avoid, due to the massive amount of time required, and with no resolution at the end, is the kind of "discussion" that took place re the Null Problem, on two separate threads, for example. Here is the statement of facts, your response to which will place you clearly in one category or the other.

1. The Null Problem does not exist in the physical universe (note, I did not say "Nulls do not exist").
2. The Null Problem exists in the unreal universe of discourse, beloved of pseudo-theoreticians, who cannot relate to the real universe.
3. The 3VL and 42VL that is yet to be resolved is close to their heart, and they will never resolve it, because if they did, they would not have a Thing to argue endlessly about.
4. The 3VL and 69VL is irrelevant to the physical universe.
5. The pseudo-theoreticians on the SQL Committee implemented the Null Problem in the SQL standard, thereby inflicting upon the physical universe a degree of pain that it did not have. Whereas programming was previously a finite task, these creatures of the deep have made it an infinite one, where every query must be scrutinised for an issue that does not exist. This is merely the insane enforcing their insanity on the sane.
6. The commercial RDBMS vendors (the above four) have implemented a finite SQL, which does not have The Null Problem, thereby relieving their customers from being reduced to the capabilities of the insane.
7. Hundreds of thousands (Millions?) of developers who use such products have never heard of The Null Problem or 3VL or 56VL. (They still have to deal with queries that return Null, as distinct from having to deal with The Null Problem.) For three decades.
8. The Null Problem is a non-issue in the physical universe. It remains a glorious and sanctified issue in the unreal universe. For three decades.

Cheers
Derek Received on Tue Sep 02 2014 - 17:35:13 CEST