Re: In an RDBMS, what does "Data" mean?

In message <40b9f86b$0$561$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>, mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org> writes
>Alfredo Novoa wrote:
>[snip]
>> Dawn M. Wolthuis wrote:
>>>It is in the leap from doing relational theory to thinking that
>>>the application of such theory is the best approach to storing/retrieving
>>>propositions using computers by a business -- that is where there is a
>>>rather significant leap of faith.
>> You are wrong. It was mathematically proven that it is better than
>>the graph based approaches.
>
>This is a very strange statement.
>It gets stated over and over again,
>not only in this newsgroup. Outside this
>newsgroup I am supposed to take it for granted and
>not take time to think about it.
>
>But here I can ask the people in support of this statement:
> - Better at what?
> - What exacltly was proven?
> - Could you please give a reference?

And by its very definition, maths proves nothing about the real world. Just because relational databases are perfect (as indeed they are) at modelling "data as defined by the relational model", that says nothing about whether the real world can be described by "data" that fits the mathematical definition.

Cheers,
Wol

-- 
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a
good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports
as Lies-to-People.
The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999