MORE ON IGNORANCE AND STUPIDITY

From: Jerome Bosch

Date: 13 Jan 2006

Pardon me sending this to you, you may be interested in this new blog: Is Codd Dead?

Quote: "Needless to say, dbdebunk.com was not impressed."

From: Fabian Pascal

Here's what one needs to know about Dawn:

“Monolog” Between Fabian Pascal and Dawn Wolthuis

Dawn Wolthuis’ Proof

On Ignorance/Stupidity vs. Knowledge/Reason and Consequences Thereof

A Note on Diarrhetic Replies

For a more realistic and intelligent view of multivalued technology by an experienced practitioner see More on Multivalued DBMS.

From: Hugh Darwen

To: Fabian Pascal

Dawn is clearly a data modeller. Data modellers don't understand what databases are for and thus they don't care about how to express queries and constraints in computer languages. Data modellers are the bane of the database world imo. Along with software engineers, I suppose.

From: Fabian Pascal

To: Hugh Darwen

I strongly disagree.

Good data modelers and DBAs, with knowledge of fundamentals, and ability to reason, are exactly what database management needs. They are certainly preferable to application programmers, text publishers, XML advocates, and bad modelers who got into the database act without any talent and preparation for the field.

I've seen many of Dawn comments and my conclusion is that she is bad period, because whatever knowledge she has, which is not much, she does not have the intellectual capacity to comprehend, or correctly infer from it.

And, unfortunately, she is hardly alone.

From: Hugh Darwen

To: Fabian Pascal

Sorry Fabian, flippantly and badly put by me. What I think I mean is that I see a lot of data modellers who appear not to consider what effects their ideas might have on the expression of queries and constraints. I think these are the ones you refer to as bad ones, and I agree wholeheartedly.

I don't call myself a data modeller, but if I were asked if I am one I would have to say, well, yes, among other things—after all, I think I know how to do it and I even teach the subject to some extent (which proves nothing of course).

From: Fabian Pascal

To: Hugh Darwen

This is exactly what I meant when I wrote in my debunking of Dawn's "proof" that exclusive focus on structure and ignoring manipulation and integrity is a show stopper. MV proponents, of whom Dawn is one, are particularly guilty of this.

In my opinion correct logical database design [with an eye towards manipulation and integrity needs) can only be done by good conceptual modelers and I don't see how the two components can be separated [except by ignorance and poor reasoning]. Good business and foundation knowledge and ability to reason are critical pre-requisites for the combined endeavor and, unfortunately, they are sorely missing in most practitioners.

What we call ourselves is not as important as what our knowledge and abilities are.

From: Hugh Darwen

To: Fabian Pascal

Okay, we are at one. But I failed to spot your second e-mail giving me the relevant dbdebunk links. I haven't read everything there, but I'd like to say how much I like your section on Relations and attribute ordering. People have sometimes drawn to my attention the fact that Codd appeared to be assuming attribute ordering in some of what he wrote, and I haven't been able to explain that as well as you have. Thanks!

From: Fabian Pascal

To: Hugh Darwen

To be fair, my understanding of that issue was helped by discussions I had with David on the subject, so your praise should go to him too.

Posted 1/20/06