I'm no Catholic, but I've still sinned my part in modeling data, and
need my absolution.
The easiest mistake I've bumped into thus far is to disregard the
presence of nulls. They're the kind of vice you should know, but which

Dear comp.databases.theory Group,
over the last one or two years you helped me a couple of times when i
asked silly questions, mainly about transactions, isolation levels
etc.

On another mailing list about a database which shall not be named, a
poster asked about a single-table database structure. It was to track
donations, and that thank-you letters had been sent in reply.
A couple folks ( myself included ) thought that there should be at

When defining numeric columns, for the last 10 years in Oracle I have
NEVER specified the size for a number unless I am specifically
required to do so (I think I've had a requirement to do it twice, but
I can't find the example now).

I am posting this link because I think it gives an excellent summary
of where we are
in utilizing databases in applications
Your thoughts?

Like most people around here, I periodically return to the view update
problem. I also subscribe to the idea that relational databases are
fundamentally about predicate logic, and that a proper interpretation
of the update problem probably has to be explained in logic terms. So

I'm new to relational theory, having read a C.J. Date's book but I worry
that I may have picked up mistaken impression about the relational
theory and thus want to validate whether my understanding is accurate or
not.