Re: We aren't a relational database ... ?

On Mon, 2007-10-08 at 07:55 -0700, David Fetter wrote:
> On Sun, Oct 07, 2007 at 07:53:14PM -0700, Jeff Davis wrote:
> > On Sun, 2007-10-07 at 22:58 -0300, Marc G. Fournier wrote:
> > > "How many open source relational databases can you name? My friend
> > > Gabrielle recently sent me the links to two of them. However, if
> > > you?re like most technical people, you probably don?t know any ?
> > > just as I didn?t until recently. I can already imagine many of you
> > > saying ?bulls**t?, what about MySQL and PostgreSQL?? (to name just
> > > two), but those are just databases, not relational databases."
> >
> > SQL does have some glaring violations of the relational model,
>
> Nope.  SQL doesn't conform with *a* relational model espoused by
> Darwen, Date and Pascal, hereinafter DDP, who are about as connected
> to database management as Christian Identity is to Christianity.  It
> conforms pretty well to Codd's relational model, and he's the guy who
> invented the thing.

I haven't heard anyone say before that duplicate tuples were part of any
relational model.

I'm not saying SQL is bad; it's certainly the best practical data
language we have.

The problem I see is that it's the _only_ practical data language in
existence, and it is (in my opinion) imperfect.

Regards,
    Jeff Davis