From: CW

To: editor

Date: 26 Jan 2004

 

I must admit, practically the whole manual could be quoted. But this particular line from `6.2 Column Types' is really nice.

 

MySQL allows you to create a column of type CHAR(0). This is mainly useful when you have to be compliant with some old applications that depend on the existence of a column but that do not actually use the value. This is also quite nice when you need a column that only can take 2 values: A CHAR(0), that is not defined as NOT NULL, will occupy only one bit and can take only 2 values: NULL or "".

 

Could you think of come magical predicate that would provide me with a meaning?

 

 

From: Fabian Pascal

To: CW

 

Well-known problem.

 

Predicate? Meaning? What's THAT?

 

 

From: CW

 

A sentence having placeholders for the fields in a relvar. In such a way that the predicate and a tuple from the relvar form a meaningful sentence. (Which should be true, for the part of the real world, the database is said to be describing)

 

Sorry to say, I don't have any of your books at hand. I keep them at home, because all people did, was damaging them instead of reading them. Otherwise I could have looked the precise term up in Date's Introduction.

 

 

From: FP

 

Heh, heh, heh. Chris, I was being facetious. C'mon.

 

 

From: CW

 

Working on your next book `Practical Jokes in Database Management'? Would be a nice title for the collection of quotes we've built.

 

 

From : FP

 

I have a yearly lecture called To Laugh or to Cry--Fallacies in Data Management. At the end of every year I select the “best” of the weekly quotes and throw them at audiences to test their ability to see thru them. You'd be amazed how many fail.

 

 

From: CW

 

I'm hardly amazed anymore, nor amused by the state of knowledge in our trade today.  One could just read Date's Introduction, and consider oneself amongst the top players in the business. It's of the few works that's worth buying in hardcover.

 

I'm not even offended anymore for staying so `stubbornly' true to the Relational Model. When the people tagging me as stubborn don't see the obvious analogy between XML and Hierarchical DBMSs. I'd call my step to XML `a small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind', 20 years back in time.

 

My lip is sore from biting it, holding my `I told you so', with every penalty that comes up for choosing a tree as a `design model'. Why in the world, is this business running backwards, when Codd has already come up with a solution, and all we need is an implementation.

 

 

From: FP

 

Top player only to fellow thinkers. Everybody else will not consider him that, but “obsolete". And without an implementation to demonstrate its advantages.

 

Independent, critical thinkers have no reason to be offended by ignorance and stupidity.

 

The answer is in my preceding comment.

 

 

Posted 03/05/04