From: DBAzine.com
There's been some discussion regarding placement for your
articles on DBAzine, given that with the new site design, there is no place
where opinion pieces might be placed, so as to clearly delineate these from the
rest of the content. There has been discussion that your pieces would more
properly belong in a blog area, and this is an idea supported by the publisher.
This would still give your pieces visibility on DBAzine, and maybe the
opportunity for more interactivity with readers, but articles on DBAzine would
be strictly limited to the more strictly how-to, solution-based articles we run
otherwise. We could not offer to pay for opinion blogs; they would strictly be
for exposure, etc.
I'm sure you have more questions/comments about this, and you're welcome to
query myself or Mike. I am sorry this has come about abruptly, but DBAzine is
changing, and in with the new, dynamic format, such decisions are being made
quickly of necessity.
From: Fabian Pascal
I was wondering why it took DBAzine so long to conform to the
usual trend in the industry to focus exclusively on products, which contributes
and reinforces the dumbing down and ignorance currently characterizing it. This
may serve the interests of the vendors and of the publishers, but not that of
the users, even if the users themselves demand mainly product-specific
information. They do so because they don't know any better, as nobody makes
them aware of the need to know fundamentals.
How it is possible to deem my material, based on science and knowledge,
"opinion", relative to the "how-to, solution-based
articles" such as those by Celko, which have so often been proved wrong,
escapes me.
When the site structure changed, the writing on the wall was clear. Neither
does the lack of prior notification surprise me: the concept of courtesy has
long disappeared not just from the industry, but from the american culture in
general.
Ed. Note: In other words, readers
should not know anything, and should not think; they should just follow “how
to” recipes (without the ability to even judge them). In other words, the
“cookbook approach”.
For what they consider “opinion” see For One Reason or Another,
the last column that they first published, then deleted.
On the same day I received the following from a reader. What
better evidence of the consequence of dismissing knowledge and reason? (which
are very practical; see A New
Database Concept: MMS, Multiple Mess System).
This is precisely what can be expected in an ignorant
industry (and society) operating on faith. And its future is predictable too.
From: S. Maloney
I suppose you've perhaps seen this article in ComputerWorld
on "DBMS2" - Time for a New View of Data
Management – already.
Given the material, it is difficult even to
suggest a most deserving potential "quote of the week"
candidate therefrom. To ComputerWorld's credit, the
piece is marked "opinion"; but even so, the article is rife
with unsubstantiated assertions.)
Some excerpts include:
The key aspects of DBMS2
include the following:
• Task-appropriate data
managers. Just use whatever is cheapest and simplest for each set of
applications. Possible choices include but are not limited to cheap online
transaction processing DBMSs, high-end OLTP DBMSs, data warehouse appliances,
XML-based document stores, highly distributed and/or small-footprint DBMSs,
in-memory systems without their own persistent storage, or cross-corpus
indexers without their own storage.
• Drastic limitations on
relational schema complexity. Relational schemas shouldn't go far beyond
two simple models: master-detail for transactions, and hypercubes/star schemas
for analytics. Anything inherently more complex is, with rare exceptions,
better handled via the schema flexibility of XML . If you need to access
data from a legacy application that violates these precepts, do so via
XML-based Web services.
• Both XML-based and
relational information integration. Eventually, most DBMS2 data integration
will be done via XML. But relational enterprise information integration will
long have a role to play, such as connecting core OLTP and data warehouse
systems.
DBMS2 is the antithesis of
much current database theory. Rather than fighting modularity, DBMS2 embraces
it. Rather than gathering administrative tasks in one huge hairball, it spreads
them across many simple systems. Above all, unlike the Oracle pipe dream of a
grand unified enterprise relational database, DBMS2 is a pragmatic, realistic
continuation of what every large enterprise is doing today."
"Finally, IT needs to
be infused throughout with representations of trust. Security, compliance,
missing data -- they all ultimately require some formalized hierarchy of trust.
So do the multiple uncertainties of search engine results, document author
reliability, planning forecasts and the like. The final resolution of these
issues will require schema complexity beyond what relational systems can
realistically handle.
Should you throw out Oracle
and DB2? Hardly. But maybe you should reduce your reliance on them. The move to
DBMS2 lets you exploit a variety of database technology advances from a variety
of vendors.
From: Matt Rogish
The bs just keeps rolling out, doesn't it?
www.newsfactor.com/news/A-New-View-of-Data-management/story.xhtml?story_id=03300000QPRF
To: S. Maloney, Matt Rogish
See my rebuttal to Monash at www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/811
From: Alf Pedersen
The Monash guy didn't like your comment: 50% is removed.
They edited all the harshest comments away, to make him less foolish.
At first, I thought
it was funny that they edited your post. Now I am outraged: This is NOT what
the Internet is about! I would like to have your original comment: I was
thinking of posting it in MY blog.
What editors for Computerworld! So much for free
speech! It caused me a really bad
temper...
From: Fabian Pascal
Free speech? In the US?! You've got to be kidding.
www.bradblog.com/archives/00001720.htm
Made a mistake and did not keep a copy. I am not
surprised. Here's a reconstruction from memory:
Date's Incoherence Principle states: It is impossible to
respond coherently to that which is incoherent.
I state: A lot of what is being said, written, or done in
the database management field—or whatever is left of it—by vendors, the trade
press and "experts" is irrelevant, misleading, or outright wrong.
While this is to a degree true of computing in general, in the database field
the problems are so acute that, claims to the contrary notwithstanding,
technology is actually regressing!
A while ago I posted at DATABASE DEBUNKINGS a link to a
paper titled Unskilled
and Unaware of It. This is the category to which Curt Monash and,
unfortunately, the majority of the industry, belong. That is what prevents him
from realizing that Alf comments, as well as these, are not insults, but
statements of fact. He complains of lack of logic, but he would not know logic
from Adam. If he did, there is no way he would have claimed what he did
in his opinion piece.
Logic is the foundation of database management, yet count
the number of practitioners who have ever gone through any education in logic
and see what you get. They can't even reason.
It would be funny if it weren't so sad, but Monash's
criticism of ITToolbox for publishing Alf's comments reminds me of Orwell's
DoubleSpeak in 1984: these days black is white and white is black. In
fact, the criticism applies to Computerworld’s publishing of Monash's own
opinion, who is unskilled and unaware of how "dreck" IT is.
There is a limit to the time and effort required to respond
to the tons of absurd nonsense that's being published these days by the trade
media, and life is too short. Even though it's hard to justify, I may, just for
the sake of it, respond to Monash's opinion at DATABASE DEBUNKINGS and let him
rebut THAT, if he can. Problem is that would require knowledge he does not
possess, [so I won't hold my breath].
From: Alf Pedersen
I am amazed: For the first time in my life I have experienced
censorship. It was performed in USA.
From: Fabian Pascal
That's because everybody has a distorted view of the US based
on what americans claim, not on reality (their propaganda, TV and movies
are very good). So good, that even the americans themselves believe in it, even
though they live here.
The system is not different than the soviet one, except much
more subtle, and the public too ignorant, unable to reason, and indoctrinated
to realize it (see Lenin,
Trotsky, and Freedom from the Tyranny of Knowledge and Reason).
From: Lee Fesperman
Yep, Monash is a real lightweight/lamebrain. He starts by
saying relational configurations are too complex and ends up saying relational
can't handle complexity.
His comments about modern 'improvements' in pointer
technology are really funny.
Like Gray and others, he makes up things because they sound
good and fit his world view. He thinks XML is going to save the database
industry. I'm sure he'll find plenty of avid listeners ... until the next fad
comes along, though of course, these lightweights will just jump on whatever is
hot—OODB, XML, SOA. It will never end because 'experts' today specialize in
shoveling crap.
Ed. Note: His
“world view” is purely commercial, and jumping on every industry bandwagon fits
that view. But one cannot, of course, simply state that explicitly, one must
couch it in terms of “the right solution”, “practical”, etc., that is, on
merit. No one has been fired for adopting fads, but you sure can be “left
behind” and dismissed if you don’t.
See also Censoring
Happens in the US...
Posted 8/19/05
