From: JN

To:  Editor

Date: 07 Sep 2004

 

To point it quaintly, it's good to see hard science come along now and again and remind us of our origins ... or how far we've deviated from where we ought to be in the first place. As your site points out, RDBMSs are based upon mathematical origins and theories (that I would say are now proven). Unfortunately, most of the major database companies never saw fit to update their products since the 1980's implementations of theories from 1960's and 1970's. I've read some theories in the 80's and 90's while I was going through school and college that looked like they would have a major impact on information modeling. To date, those theories remain unimplemented in any of the major database systems, including upstarts like MySQL.

 

Business Managers will never understand the difference between a RDMBS and Excel (and products like Filemaker or Lotus Notes that call themselves RDMBSs don't help). To them, “It can be done in five minutes in Excel, why can't it be done in less time in MSSQL or Oracle???” is the mantra of the day.

 

Had I known that these were the challenges that I would be facing after leaving school, I might have decided to stay on and try to build the next killer database system and be bought out by the likes of Microsoft or Oracle.

 

Please continue doing your work. Perhaps there will be some other upstart company that can revolutionize the world just by simply coding the mathematical theories on how our world goes round.

 

 

From: Fabian Pascal

To: JN

 

I'm afraid the problem is deeper than what you describe. The US is an anti-intellectual society, and there is an acute decay of the educational system. Business people without any formal education are turning academia into a vendor training platform. This is one reason why the US is now descending into fascism and theocracy. See my editorial The Myth of Market-Based Education.

 

Unfortunately, US cultural imperialism induces many parts of the world to copy the US. The time of the west is now approaching its end. Watch the far-east taking over (see Lenin, Trotsky, and Freedom from the Tyranny of Knowledge and Reason).

 

 

Posted 10/15/04