Re: Fabian Pascal and RDBMS deficiencies in fully implementing the relational model

On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 05:20:46PM +0200, Martijn van Oosterhout wrote:
> On Fri, Jun 09, 2006 at 07:09:12AM -0400, Agent M wrote:
> > Well, the Date argument against NULLs (and he never endorsed them,
> > or so he claims) is that they are not data- they represent the
> > absence of data- so why put non-data in a _data_base.
>
> At this point you could start a whole philosophical discussion about
> whether knowing you don't know something is a fact worth storing.

And to me, the answer is an unqualified "yes." A state of ignorance
is an important piece of information by itself.

For example, that I don't know someone's birthdate is important. When
I'm trying to figure out when to send a birthday card, knowing that I
don't know this piece of information means that I take a different
action "decide whether to try to find out what the birthdate is." from
the action I would take if I didn't know that I don't know the
birthdate, which is "rummage through all my records trying to find the
birthdate."

Cheers,
D
--
David Fetter <david(at)fetter(dot)org> http://fetter.org/
phone: +1 415 235 3778 AIM: dfetter666
Skype: davidfetter

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