I agree with Geoffrey, Wol. It would not be pretty, but one could presumably build a "Nelson-Pick datamodel" on top of data stored as relational data are today (easier to put a relational model on PIck since PIck is more fully featured). There is some tight-coupling between the logical and physical data models in Pick (as there also is in RDBMS's), but I really do not think that relational theory prohibts benchmarks. Most of the zealots in the relational world would consider MV/Pick/U2 very flawed, which is why benchmarks are developed for SQL-DBMS's, ignoring all of the others.
I predict (0.8) that the industry will broaden its view within the coming decade, as it has started to do so already, even if not enough. Any company that has an RDBMS tool with significant associated revenue, such as Oracle, Microsoft, and IBM, is not going to shake up this part of the industry soon, but each is making some baby steps to pull away from caring about strict relational (aka exclusively set-based) processing. Unless one of these is going to do something bold in their marketing, the impetus will need to come from outside the big 3 DB vendors. Cheers! --dawn -- Dawn M. Wolthuis Tincat Group, Inc. tincat-group.com Take and give some delight today On 7/16/07, Geoffrey Mitchell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Read Codd and & Date's rules. Can't remember which, but one of them > says "the database user is not permitted to know how the database > stores the data". In other words, empirical testing is FORBIDDEN. > Seeing as empirical testing is *the* "sine qua non" of science, > relational databases are, BY DEFINITION, totally unscientific. > > So, if you want a benchmark, relational database theory explicitly > says "No way, Jose!" !!! > How does not being able to know how the data is stored prohibit empirical testing? As long as you can provide inputs to a system and retrieve outputs you can perform empirical tests. -- Geoffrey Mitchell Programmer/Analyst Home Decorator's Collection 314-684-1062
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