Re: Dreaming About Redesigning SQL

"Christopher Browne" <cbbrowne@acm.org> wrote in message
news:bmpoap$oc47b$1@ID-125932.news.uni-berlin.de...
> Quoth "Anthony W. Youngman" <thewolery@nospam.demon.co.uk>:
> > In article <3f8cbee1.1656673@shawnews>, Gene Wirchenko
> > <genew@mail.ocis.net> writes
> >>seunosewa@inaira.com (Seun Osewa) wrote:
> >>
> >>[snip]
> >>
> >>>Sometimes I wonder why its so important to model data in the "rela-
> >>>tional way", to think of data in form of sets of tuples rather than
> >>>tables or lists or whatever.  I mean, though its elegant and based
> >>>on mathematical principles I would like to know why its the _right_
> >>>model to follow in designing a DBMS (or database).  The way my mind
> >>>sees it, should we not rather be interested in what works?
> >>
> >>     How do you know it works?  Without the theory and model, you
> >>really do not.
> >>
> > And don't other databases have both theory and model?
> >
> > It's just that all the academics have been brainwashed into thinking
> > this is true only for relational, so that's what they teach to
> > everyone else, and the end result is that all research is ploughed
> > into a model that may be (I didn't say "is") bankrupt. Just like the
> > academics were brainwashed into thinking that microkernels were the
> > be-all and end-all - until Linus showed them by practical example
> > that they were all idiots :-)
>
> In mathematics as well as in the analysis of computer algorithms, it
> is typical for someone who is trying to explain something new to try
> to do so in terms that allow the gentle reader to do as direct a
> comparison as possible between the things with which they are familiar
> (e.g. - in this case, relational database theory) and the things with
> which they are perhaps NOT familiar (e.g. - in this case, MV
> databases).
>
> Nobody seems to have been prepared to explain the MV model in adequate
> theoretical terms as to allow the gentle readers to compare the theory
> behind it with the other theories out there.
>
> I'm afraid that does not reflect very well on either those lauding MV
> or those trashing it.
>
> - Those lauding it have not made an attempt to show why the theory
>   behind it would support it being preferable to the other models
>   around.
>
>   I hear some vague "Oh, it's not about models; it's about language"
>   which doesn't get to the heart of anything.
>
> - And all we get from Bob Badour are dismissive sound-bites that
>   _don't_ explain why he should be taken seriously.  Indeed, the
>   sharper and shorter he gets, the less credible that gets.
>
>   There are no pointers to "Michael Stonebraker on Why Pick Is Not My
>   Favorite Database."  Brian Kernighan felt the issues with Pascal
>   were important enough that he wrote a nice, approachable paper that
>   quite cogently describes the problems with Standard
>   Pascal. <http://www.lysator.liu.se/c/bwk-on-pascal.html>  He nicely
>   summarizes it with 9 points that fit on a sheet of paper.
>
>   If Bob wanted people to take him really seriously about this, and
>   has done all the research to back up the points that are apparently
>   so obvious to him, then it should surely be _easy_ to write up "Nine
>   Reasons Pick Isn't My Favorite Database System."
>
>   And just as people have been pointing back to Kernighan's paper on
>   Pascal for over 20 years, folks could point back to the "Pick"
>   essay.
>
> But apparently it is much too difficult for anyone to present any
> _useful_ discourse on it.

How many times do I have to repeat the same points?

I dislike Pick because it lacks logical identity, confuses the physical and
the logical, lacks a robust query language, lacks physical independence,
lacks logical independence and damages brains.