- From: Jan Algermissen <jalgermissen@topicmapping.com>
- Date: Tue, 3 Jan 2006 19:42:47 +0100
- To: Frank Manola <fmanola@acm.org>
- Cc: Timothy Falconer <timothy@immuexa.com>, semantic-web@w3.org
On Jan 3, 2006, at 6:35 PM, Frank Manola wrote: > RDF data is *highly* normalized: RDF essentially organizes data as > binary relations (one per property) with surrogate keys (URIs), > which is as normalized as you can get. I just love it to see people making comparisions between the rock- solid, stone-aged dinosaur 'relational data model' and stuff like RDF (or Topic Maps for that matter)...which are essentially also data models in the exact same sense. I'd go as far as saying that they are direct competitors to the relational model - though this is sometimes difficult to see given the decades that the relational model is ahead in terms of theoretical analysis and implementation experience. No doubt that the inherent requirement for typing (and grouping together of properties) that the relational model imposes on data modelers (and query writers) has performance advantages when it comes to disk IO but I seriously wonder exactly how important these advantages are today. Especially if we take into account that much of the relational body of theory is about dealing with 'problems' introduced by the inherent typing. With RDF et al. there just is no such thing as normalization issues, null values, ternary logic - not to mention the integration problems induced in the long run. Jan <humor> P.S. Just in case Date or Pascal ever read this and honor me with a quote on dbdebunk.com: I really do like the relational model and most of your enjoyable writings...I just feel IT is off to something new in a sense :o) </humor> ________________________________________________________________________ _______________ Jan Algermissen, Consultant & Programmer http://jalgermissen.com Tugboat Consulting, 'Applying Web technology to enterprise IT' http://www.tugboat.de
Received on Tuesday, 3 January 2006 18:43:01 UTC