Re: Designing a structure for a personal database

Lew <lew@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>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.
We can never agree on this one. You see only the differences in the
model, I see only the commonality. The fact that you _can_ argue about
what makes a chocolate cake or a relational database makes me think
that both have a "truth" that exists outside any implementation.
>
>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>
The interface was named after the Alto computer
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Alto>
on which it was first
demonstrated. It was Xerox, not me, who chose to omit "Palo" from the
name. I prefer the term "Alto user interface" because it acknowledges
the origin but I agree that "graphical user interface" is much more
common and I will adopt it in future posts to avoid worrying the
reader.