Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ginosko!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!sumax!thebes!nwnexus!intek01!mark From: mark@intek01.UUCP (Mark McWiggins) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: Relational Model (Was Re: Oracle: Previous Record) Keywords: relational empirical support Message-ID: <220@intek01.UUCP> Date: 21 Jul 89 17:32:40 GMT References: <18886@sequent.UUCP> Organization: Integration Technologies Inc. (Intek), Bellevue WA Lines: 43 normb@sequent.UUCP (Norm Browne) writes: >[At the risk of being labeled a heretic in the contemporary dbms world. :-)] > Does it strike anyone else that the above kind of > statement indicates that the relational model is > not a very accurate depiction of the real world? >I concluded my graduate studies at Claremont Grad in I.S. last spring and >this was one of the areas that I researched. I could find no substantiation >that the relational model _really_ represented real world applications. >Was my research simply incomplete? If so, please recommend some readings >(conceptual modeling, semantic aspects of rdbms, etc.) that `prove' the >``realness'' of relational ... >If my failure to turn up any supporting evidence was not oversight, then >why has no one bothered to work on the subject? >BTW- I am not attacking relational per se (so cool the flamethrowers :-)), >it just seems that the theory is lacking some empirical support. The empirical support is everywhere: scads of working applications based on the relational model that deal more-or-less appropriately with real-world stuff. Why bother with any other proof? This is not to say that relational is always "best"; that depends on what you're doing. It's like any other language system. Some constructs that flow beautifully in one model are a total clunk in another. >---------------------------==========================-------------------------- >Norm Browne > > "Mathematics has nothing to do with the real world." -Richard Pick >===========================--------------------------========================== Mark McWiggins Integration Technologies, Inc. (Intek) 1400 112th Ave. SE #202 Bellevue WA 98004 (206) 455-9935 uunet!intek01!mark