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RE: Caught napping!

• To: xml-dev@l...
• Subject: RE: Caught napping!
• From: "Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@S...>
• Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 08:32:23 -0500

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bill de hOra [mailto:bdehora@i...]
> Sent: Friday, November 09, 2001 8:07 AM
> To: xml-dev@l...
> Subject: RE:  Caught napping!
> 
> 
> What's wrong with the relational data model?

As best I understand it, that's like asking "what's wrong with automata
theory" for designing an XML editor or some other good-sized piece of
procedural code.  At one level, the answer is "nothing: Church and Turing
proved it once and for all time."  Likewise, Codd proved that any data model
can be normalized, so nothing is "wrong" with using it to model your
aircraft manuals coded up in 10 GB of XML.  

At another level, the answer is "so what: my bosses/stockholders/pride want
results, not elegant data models (or automata); practical techniques and
tools that make it feasible to do it for enterprise-scale applications don't
exist."   

My take is that the relational data model (like automata theory) is an
elegant and powerful theory that we should all understand better and apply
in our work whenever possible, but is not sufficiently
understood/implemented/supported to do all the jobs we need to do in Real
Life. 

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  • Re: Caught napping!
    • From: Dan Weinreb <dlw@e...>

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