Re: Relational Databases Lack Relationships

On 2015-10-22 16:20:18 +0000, Eric said:

> Following a recent catastrophic computer failure I found myself having
> to browse the internet with the interruption of many more advertisements
> than I am used to. One amazingly pervasive ad offered me a free download
> of a book about graph databases. Obviously from a company that makes a
> "graph database system", whatever that is. Still, after about the 47th
> viewing, why not, I might learn something.
>
> What I have learnt so far is that they use the subject of this post as a
> section heading, followed by:
>
> "For several decades, developers have tried to accommodate connected,
> semi-structured datasets inside relational databases. But whereas
> relational databases were initially designed to codify paper forms
> and tabular structures—something they do exceedingly well—they
> struggle when attempting to model the ad hoc, exceptional relationships
> that crop up in the real world. Ironically, relational databases deal
> poorly with relationships."
>
> Aside from needing to find out what on earth they mean by
> "semi-structured" and "ad-hoc, exceptional relationships", has anyone
> ever heard, from any other source, that codifying paper forms and tabular
> structures is what relational databases were designed to do?

Alas, often. A part of the XML community had a similar mindset, for instance. And I work with people who dismiss the relational model as a way to have data uncomfortably spread across different tables.

Alas, I happen to have read the chapter you cite. The whole section is a pearl. It may be previewed on Google Books (Section 2):

https://books.google.com/books?id=jzvcCQAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover

You must realize that when they say "relational databases", they really mean MySQL. Just to put things in perspective.

And as a cherry on the cake, I find it kind of ironic that their example is about social networks, when (a heavily customized and distributed version of) MySQL was used to build Facebook!

Nicola

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