It is dishonest to try to dress up a sales pitch as an academic paper. To be clear: I’m not saying there is anything wrong with selling a product, which is a respectable way to make a living. What I’m opposed to is deception.
Why does the author feel compelled to explain basic database theory (asserted vs. derived facts)? The remainder of the document doesn’t seem to need it in any way. To add insult to the injury, he gets the terminology wrong!
What’s the point to adding figures to a document, if they aren’t going to clarify anything?
The author doesn’t do himself any favors by insulting competing alternatives - “normalization is for sissies”. He could have merely said “normalization is unnecessary”, in which case he would have merely been wrong.
Yes, the author is wrong about database normalization. The goal of normalization is to maximize the flexibility with which databases can be manipulated, and ensure that they won’t be put into a state that violates business rules. Database management systems abstract away the specifics of physical storage, so a logically normalized database can be as physically redundant as necessary to optimize common read or write operations.
Much of the remainder of the document is outright nonsense under the Semantic Prism™ that abstractions shall not be conflated with their implementations.
Accountants Don’t Use Erasers
Lots of computing can be characterized as “append-only”.
Sort of like that old joke…
Dean, to the physics department. “Why do I always have to give you guys so much money, for laboratories and expensive equipment and stuff. Why couldn’t you be like the math. department - all they need is money for pencils, paper and waste-paper baskets. Or even better, like the philosophy department. All they need are pencils and paper.”
Some observations:
It is dishonest to try to dress up a sales pitch as an academic paper. To be clear: I’m not saying there is anything wrong with selling a product, which is a respectable way to make a living. What I’m opposed to is deception.
Why does the author feel compelled to explain basic database theory (asserted vs. derived facts)? The remainder of the document doesn’t seem to need it in any way. To add insult to the injury, he gets the terminology wrong!
What’s the point to adding figures to a document, if they aren’t going to clarify anything?
The author doesn’t do himself any favors by insulting competing alternatives - “normalization is for sissies”. He could have merely said “normalization is unnecessary”, in which case he would have merely been wrong.
Yes, the author is wrong about database normalization. The goal of normalization is to maximize the flexibility with which databases can be manipulated, and ensure that they won’t be put into a state that violates business rules. Database management systems abstract away the specifics of physical storage, so a logically normalized database can be as physically redundant as necessary to optimize common read or write operations.
Much of the remainder of the document is outright nonsense under the Semantic Prism™ that abstractions shall not be conflated with their implementations.
Indeed. This is a blog post formatted as an ACM conference submission (and chocked full of fluff). It’s an annoying/disturbing trend.
Sort of like that old joke…