Re: Designing a structure for a personal database

David Segall wrote:
> We seem to have an irreconcilable disagreement that is based on
> different views of "true and correct". I think that chocolate cake is
> an im****tant concept that we all share. You argue that real chocolate
> cake does not exist because nobody has produced a cake that is
> entirely chocolate and/or that there are zillions of different recipes
> for chocolate cake and/or that there are sound reasons for not eating
> chocolate cake. I can't refute any of those arguments. My view is that

Straw man.  That is not my argument; you have misstated my points
irrevocably.

> the chocolate cake model is "true and correct" because everyone who
> reads the desert menu knows what chocolate cake should be and because
> chocolate cake has become an im****tant part of the menu.

You can eat two different chocolate cakes and feel that they don't even 
deserve the same name, they're so different.  One can be white, the other 
brown.  One can have icing, the other not.  One can be very sweet and
moist, 
the other rather dry and not so sweet.  one can be made with tons of
sugar, 
the other without any sugar at all.  One might not even have chocolate in
it, 
being made with carob and still billed as "chocolate" cake.  I know, I've
had 
them.

Once again, you cite an example that proves my point, despite your
complete 
misstatement of my point.

> It seems that you agree that we have a common understanding of a
> "relational database" or the "Alto user interface" [sic] because you can

that's the *Palo* Alto user interface.  That's not even the name of the 
interface; it's simply where it was developed, at the *Palo* Alto Research

Center in *Palo* Alto.  I don't know how you came to think of that as the
name 
for the interface principles.  They were developed in Palo Alto, not
"Alto". 
"Palo" is part of the name.  Omitting the "Palo" is incorrect.  The name
of 
the city is "Palo Alto".  Do not forget the "Palo".  Palo Alto.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palo_Alto>

> argue about them. I assume that you would also agree that both have
> had a profound effect on the history of computing. Our disagreement is
> therefore only whether those terms describe real, singular, intuitive
> models. I think they do. 

You are wrong.

-- 
Lew