Re: Progress of Small Task

James

Thank you for your responses. Just a quick response for now, while I compile a full response.

First, I happily acknowledge that you are definitely not in the difficult-to-impossible category re implementation of hierarchical data. Actually as an implementer, period.

Second, I really appreciate the directness and concision of your responses.

Third, it is uncanny to me at least that you and I are so close on some items, so much in agreement, but so far apart on others. It feels like (speaking as a non-scientist!) you and I are playing on the same team, against the same enemy, and we are among the better players ... but you have a particular bone that is missing, and thus you have certain blind spots, can't-dos. And I readily acknowledge that if you use the same analogy, you would probably say the same thing about me. It is in no way an insult, more of a concern, how do I get this team member past his blind spot, how do I get him to insert that missing bone. Say the bone is a femur.

The missing bone is of course your perception of hierarchies. To you, it is entirely outside the RM, your body (note your emotive comments), the rest of which is so integrated.

Something earlier than the Alice book (Date ? Darwen ?) planted that notion in you. The Alice book has reinforced that notion (I will detail that later), so you see the bone as a tool, say a hockey stick, external to your body, the RM. And you think I am nuts, because I play, without a hockey stick.

And for me, who has read many of those books, binned them, retaining only Codd, for me who has practised only Codd, hierarchies are handled, completely and totally, within the RM. And SQL as the one-and-only data sub-language (definitely has faults, but let's not get distracted) that implements the RM, to whatever degree (let's not argue about "relations"), handles hierarchies completely and easily. Iff you understand the first sentence in this para. You cannot execute the second sentence otherwise, of course you will have "difficulty". Thus you revert to the bone, the hockey stick, outside your body, the RM.

You have been subverted.

Unless you are aware that you have been subverted, you will not be open to anything I say about this matter. You will not be able to hypothesise and examine what I say, the examples I give, or provide me with specific examples.

Thanks again. More, later.

Cheers
Derek Received on Mon Feb 02 2015 - 04:19:39 CET