Discussion:
Any good NON-"theoretical" data modeling/Codd-relational database design courses/books/papers out there?
(too old to reply)
y***@gmail.com
2020-06-26 21:01:11 UTC
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Hello everyone,
I recently got my degree in Computer Science and I feel I learned only notional-theoretical concepts and very few practical ones.
I'd like to learn more about data modeling and database design (of course, in the relational meaning, i.e. Dr. E. F. Codd), everything from the design, the idea, finding the entities and their attributes, the logical model, to solving relationships, finding the keys (primary and alternate) of the entities (No RecordIDs à la 1960 Record Filing System), how to enforce Referential Integrity and Relational Integrity, Domain constraints, BEST PRACTICES, naming conventions etc, you get the idea.
I'd like to know what are the best books (except 700 pages bricks with "theoretical" and "professor-only" subjects), online courses (Udemy, PluralSight, CourseRa etc) or articles/papers to learn Data Modeling and (Relational) DataBase Design.

Pinging Derek Ignatius Asirvadem because the evidence can lead one to conclude he's one of the few who totally mastered the Relational Model. I'd really love tho receive an advice/response from Him.

Thank you.

P.S. English is not my mother tongue, please excuse any errors on my part.
Roy Hann
2020-07-01 10:06:42 UTC
Permalink
Post by y***@gmail.com
Pinging Derek Ignatius Asirvadem because the evidence can lead one
to conclude he's one of the few who totally mastered the Relational
Model.
You were doing quite well there. I was going to take your request
seriously.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I'd really love tho receive an advice/response from Him.
I shall be fascinated by how that turns out for you.

Roy
Erwin
2020-11-01 18:38:57 UTC
Permalink
Post by Roy Hann
Post by y***@gmail.com
Pinging Derek Ignatius Asirvadem because the evidence can lead one
to conclude he's one of the few who totally mastered the Relational
Model.
You were doing quite well there. I was going to take your request
seriously.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I'd really love tho receive an advice/response from Him.
I shall be fascinated by how that turns out for you.
Roy
No you won't be fascinated because you already know. He'll come out believing the shit loads of pig poop he's going to be fed is the real science.
Erwin
2020-11-03 21:38:51 UTC
Permalink
Post by Roy Hann
Post by y***@gmail.com
Pinging Derek Ignatius Asirvadem because the evidence can lead one
to conclude he's one of the few who totally mastered the Relational
Model.
You were doing quite well there. I was going to take your request
seriously.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I'd really love tho receive an advice/response from Him.
I shall be fascinated by how that turns out for you.
Roy
No you won't be fascinated because you already know. He'll come out believing the shit loads of pig poop he's going to be fed is the real science.
In fact I should point out that he was actually not even remotely "doing well" at all ... Where he wrote "I recently got my degree in Computer Science and I feel I learned only notional-theoretical concepts and very few practical ones." any competent professional should have seen the red flag of "theory isn't practical". Sailor who sets out to sea without either rudder or compass etc. etc. ...
Roy Hann
2020-12-01 10:51:23 UTC
Permalink
Post by Erwin
any competent professional should have seen the red flag of "theory
isn't practical".
I admit I decided he was really just trolling so I didn't bother to trot
out my usual observation that theory is the scary name for
"best practice". (Which is not to say that all that is labelled best
practice is any such thing, nor that it is incapable of revision.)

Roy
Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
2020-12-02 04:09:12 UTC
Permalink
==[1]==
Post by Roy Hann
Post by y***@gmail.com
Pinging Derek Ignatius Asirvadem because the evidence can lead one
to conclude he's one of the few who totally mastered the Relational
Model.
You were doing quite well there. I was going to take your request
seriously.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I'd really love tho receive an advice/response from Him.
I shall be fascinated by how that turns out for you.
Roy
No you won't be fascinated because you already know. He'll come out believing the shit loads of pig poop he's going to be fed is the real science.
In fact I should point out that he was actually not even remotely "doing well" at all ... Where he wrote "I recently got my degree in Computer Science and I feel I learned only notional-theoretical concepts and very few practical ones." any competent professional should have seen the red flag of "theory isn't practical". Sailor who sets out to sea without either rudder or compass etc. etc. ...
==[2]==
any competent professional should have seen the red flag of "theory
isn't practical".
I admit I decided he was really just trolling so I didn't bother to trot
out my usual observation that theory is the scary name for
"best practice". (Which is not to say that all that is labelled best
practice is any such thing, nor that it is incapable of revision.)
Roy
Erwin Snout, the Rat Face himself.
He did not actually say that. So you and your cohort of pig-poop eaters perform your usual ritual of erecting a Straw Man argument (heavy on the straw, light on the argument), donning the mask of a "professional", dishonestly proposing something the young man did not say, and then burning it. Whoopdedoo, freaky creatures, you succeeded in burning down you own creation.

Meanwhile what he did say, remains untouched, the ashes simply blew away, like your intellect. And my answer, to the question, not to glorious your Straw Man, remains, neither found nor read by the non-scientists such as you.

Roy

You are blowing hard on a Straw Man made of dung, not on anything that was actually said. As evidenced you cannot make even simple discernments. I would say, eat shit and die, but hey, you and your fellow sewer rats are already doing that, for fifty years.

Cheers
Derek

Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
2020-12-02 03:40:55 UTC
Permalink
Post by Roy Hann
Post by y***@gmail.com
Pinging Derek Ignatius Asirvadem because the evidence can lead one
to conclude he's one of the few who totally mastered the Relational
Model.
You were doing quite well there. I was going to take your request
seriously.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I'd really love tho receive an advice/response from Him.
I shall be fascinated by how that turns out for you.
Roy
No you won't be fascinated because you already know. He'll come out believing the shit loads of pig poop he's going to be fed is the real science.
Marvellous.

That coming from:
- one of the non-scientists who, as evidenced, has been swallowing 50 years of pig poop
- who cannot discern science from pig poop
- Sniping at people who can make the discernment
- in hysterical ignorance (what, the sewer rat is not a scientist ?) that the question was answered four months ago, in separate threads
- the answer was scientific, which the sewer rat does not understand

Two sewer rats, who produce nothing, talking behind the backs of others, who have progressed and answered the question. You can't make this stuff up.

Cheers
Derek
Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
2020-07-02 10:00:37 UTC
Permalink
Post by y***@gmail.com
I recently got my degree in Computer Science and I feel I learned only notional-theoretical concepts and very few practical ones.
Yes. That is because all the textbooks and "academic" papers are anti-relational, written by either Date; Darwen; Fagin; etc, or their followers, supporting 1960's Record Filing Systems as "relational", and there is a massive drive to suppress the actual Relational Model. Further, where I would expect the professors to actually understand what they are teaching, and therefore determine the pig-poop for what it is, they do not, they merely parrot the filth without understanding.

The result is, whatever does get taught, is superficial pig-poop badged as "theory", as "science". Absolutely nothing of which can be used in the real world. Theory that is not practicable sucks, because it is mere fantasy, and this particular set of "theories" sucks dead sows.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I'd like to learn more about data modeling and database design (of course, in the relational meaning, i.e. Dr. E. F. Codd), everything from the design, the idea, finding the entities and their attributes, the logical model, to solving relationships, finding the keys (primary and alternate) of the entities (No RecordIDs à la 1960 Record Filing System), how to enforce Referential Integrity and Relational Integrity, Domain constraints, BEST PRACTICES, naming conventions etc, you get the idea.
That is a big ask, and it will take years. It is best done with a mentor, and a real world project. Please feel free to open a thread with an example.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I'd like to know what are the best books (except 700 pages bricks with "theoretical" and "professor-only" subjects), online courses (Udemy, PluralSight, CourseRa etc) or articles/papers to learn Data Modeling and (Relational) DataBase Design.
There aren't any. In my 43 years in the business, I have not seen a single decent book on database design. All the available books, second to being pig-poop, cover other subjects (fragments) of the requirement, and with an elitist "theoretical" weight, no practical directions.

I am in the process of writing one, but it has to be expanded to overcome the mountain of pig poop that is established as the "science".

There are many free books (eBooks; PDFs) on the internet. All pure filth. You get what you pay for.

I train people after establishing a mentor relationship.

To get started:

1. Read only Codd
1.1 and anyone who actually practises Codd (sadly, that appears to be limited to one person and his customers).

2. Apply the Four Laws of thought, because it is a foundation of all science. That will enable you to identify pig-poop; non-science;, and eliminate it.
2.1 Note that Codd's 1971 paper, and his Relational Model/Tasmania contradict the rigid requirements in his Relational Model, and therefore are eliminated for anyone intending to implement the RM.
2.2 The forces of darkness that are enthroned in the pig sty, claim that precisely those papers are the "relational model". They do not disclose the fact that those papers had the explicit purpose of teaching the then embedded Hierarchical DBMS and other Record ID based DBMS to use some of the facilities of the Relational Model. Thus the Record ID (surrogate) methods that Codd suggest in those papers are limited to Record ID based systems.
We have had genuine Relational DBMS since 1984, as genuine SQL, so there is no need for first implementing the idiocy of Record ID based files, and then elevating them to provide a small degree of Relational capability. The uncorrupted mind can simply implement the Relational Model, and obtain 100% of its capabilities.

3. I have a fair amount of Answers to Questions on StackOverflow. My handle is PerformanceDBA. Go to my profile, list the Answers, and read anything that piques your interest. Note that even on SO, the marauding hordes of pig poop eaters are quite active.
Post by y***@gmail.com
Pinging Derek Ignatius Asirvadem because the evidence can lead one to conclude he's one of the few who totally mastered the Relational Model. I'd really love tho receive an advice/response from Him.
Thanks.

I trust that is from the evidence, of the mountain of pig poop, versus the small definitive papers re the Relational Model.

You can see from this forum, and even this thread that it is a war between truth vs falsity, between science vs pig-poop marketed as "science", between Codd/Asirvadem vs the Date/Darwen/Fagin Gulag, between Simplicity (truth) vs Complexity (falsity).

If you would like to avoid the noise that occurs on this channel, please feel free to email me directly. First-name dot last-name at gmail dot com.

You may enjoy the following thread, wherein I have taken an academic who /was/ imbued with the false "relational model", and crossed the line into the real one, on just one aspect - that anything can be defined in a Relational database, using Relational Keys, proving that the filth published as "science" re /the RM is limited is some way/, is false:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/comp.databases.theory/2GHCadeG5sA

Cheers
Derek
y***@gmail.com
2020-07-04 11:48:31 UTC
Permalink
Hello Derek, it's a great honor to receive a reply from you.
Post by Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
That is a big ask, and it will take years. It is best done with a mentor, and a real world project. Please feel free to open a thread with an example.
Sure! I think only by practice and exercise it is possible to improve, not by wasting time on cumbersome, redundant "academic" and "theoretical" only book/material with zero application in real life.
Post by Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
I am in the process of writing one, but it has to be expanded to overcome the mountain of pig poop that is established as the "science".
Best news! Whenever you are done, please update us. A practical book (in the style of your StackOverflow replies - comprehensive, well explained, step by step etc) is VERY needed. Please also include all the various phases of modeling, maybe accompanied by a real world example. For example IDEF1X defines 5 phases:
1. Project initiation
2. Entity definition
3. Relationship definition
4. Key definitions
5. Attribute definition
I'm pretty sure you indeed follow there phases since IDEF1X is the standard for modelling Relational Databases (and not UML like I was taught at University and 95% of StackOverflow believes)
Post by Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
3. I have a fair amount of Answers to Questions on StackOverflow. My handle is PerformanceDBA. Go to my profile, list the Answers, and read anything that piques your interest. Note that even on SO, the marauding hordes of pig poop eaters are quite active.
I know, in fact I already have read lots of replies and documents from you before c.d.t.

Some questions for you:
1. I have noticed you were a great supporter of 5NF/6NF until 2015 circa. Your thought then changed in favour of 3NF. Is this still the case in mid 2020? I think Codd only defined up to 3NF, and any higher normal form is complete "academic" deceive, fraud, trick or rebrand of the original normal forms by DR. E. F. Codd i.e. to my understanding, 3NF is the fullest form of the Only and One original Relational Model defined by Codd, is that correct?

2. Could you please explain a bit more the Open Architecture standard from 1984 perfected in 1990 from a non-hardware point of view? (http://www.softwaregems.com.au/Documents/Article/Application%20Architecture/Open%20Architecture.pdf) I literally found zero results on Google.

Always appreciated.
Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
2020-07-06 10:35:59 UTC
Permalink
Post by y***@gmail.com
Hello Derek,
You have many questions. It cannot be answered right away, if I am to give it the treatment that you expect. I will do so over time. I may open new threads, to keep each subject separate.
Post by y***@gmail.com
it's a great honor to receive a reply from you.
Thank you. I am not particularly important in this venture. First the truth is. For that, and for the discernment of what is not, we have Aristotle.
Second, Dr E F Codd ... Sure, over the decades, due to purist practice and the elimination of the filth that others promote as the "relational model", I have progressed his work, by the Grace of God.
I stand on the shoulders of giants.
Post by y***@gmail.com
Post by Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
That is a big ask, and it will take years. It is best done with a mentor, and a real world project. Please feel free to open a thread with an example.
Sure! I think only by practice and exercise it is possible to improve, not by wasting time on cumbersome, redundant "academic" and "theoretical" only book/material with zero application in real life.
To be clear.
- I am a theoretician (but not an academic), an engineer by training
- Practice without a foundation of solid theory is for people who live in mud huts or in sewers
- Theory is thus essential for any practical endeavour to succeed ... but in the last 100 years, and particularly after we lost the war, it has been perverted into something quite insane
- I dismiss theory that does not have a practical purpose, as fantasy. Good for masturbation, but one should keep it to oneself. Writing papers about it, is porn, attractive to similarly perverted minds ... but as you know imposed on the young, indoctrination under the guise of "education".
- There is a particularly evil set of "theory" in this science, database design, in that it is intended to suppress real theory and retard progress of the science. Thus the Relational Model is suppressed, and the pre-relational Record ID based Filing Systems are promoted and marketed as "relational". Thus that set of theories is in fact anti-theory.

So the correct sequence in this era of perverted science is:
- Study the theory
--- determining and eliminating anti-theory
--- ignoring theory that has no practical purpose
- then implement the theory faithfully
--- noting all issues, and the requirements to overcome them
- Modulate the theory
Post by y***@gmail.com
Post by Derek Ignatius Asirvadem
I am in the process of writing one, but it has to be expanded to overcome the mountain of pig poop that is established as the "science".
Best news! Whenever you are done, please update us. A practical book (in the style of your StackOverflow replies - comprehensive, well explained, step by step etc) is VERY needed.
Yes. Far more explanations than on SO. Note that my Answers on SO are limited to the question, and to what can be explained in that medium. Eg. it does not work to tell every person that Record IDs are wrong, wrong, wrong, I cannot go into the whys and wherefores, I just give them the data model that they need. Whereas in the book the explanations are complete. It is actually a course.
Post by y***@gmail.com
Please also include all the various phases of modeling, maybe accompanied by a real world example.
Yes. I use three full-blown Case Studies, throughout the course.
- a simple data model [43 tables] for all the basics
- a moderate DM [62 tables] for all the different types of constraints; etc
- and a complex DM [83 tables], including scheduling and resource matching
These are from the courses that I have taught over the decades, and thus quite mature. The second and third Case Studies are models that solve problems that the pig-poop eating freaks cannot solve, and precisely. ( I have challenged the freaks to solve such problems in this forum, but they do not. )
Post by y***@gmail.com
1. Project initiation
2. Entity definition
3. Relationship definition
4. Key definitions
5. Attribute definition
I'm pretty sure you indeed follow there phases since IDEF1X is the standard for modelling Relational Databases
Yes and no. Of course I followed IDEF1X for decades, but the exercise requires much more than just a standard for the *notation*. It is not a Method, and a standard, as such, cannot be expected to provide the Method. Eg. the pig poop Gulag screams and wails that Codd did not specify this or Codd failed to specify prohibitions for that. All quite idiotic, and proof in and of itself that the freaks suckle sows at night, that they are total failures as "theoreticians". Because any genuine academic knows that a paper only defines the new material. Codd cannot be expected to define database design, only to define the RM as applied to database design.

I give the Method. It is those 5 points in the context of 30 years maturation, which becomes an hierarchy, not just 5 points, more like 20 points in a proper arrangement.

I also enforce the RM, which IDEF1X cannot do. I have these published (paying customers) as Extensions, but given that the OO/ORM freaks have diluted IDEF1X, really, it is fit for a new Standard.
Post by y***@gmail.com
(and not UML like I was taught at University and 95% of StackOverflow believes)
1. UML is broken all on its own, without regard to how or where or upon what it is used. One single symbol for every **thing** (object or not), with 42 notations, which are never enough. So each modeller adds a notation of their own, in order to document what he has designed, the result being one symbol for everything with 400 notations, that no one understands. It is a study in absurdity.

2. It fails to differentiate between Control and Data, each of which have separate sciences for implementation.
//
The nerves are physically separate from the muscles that they control. Only a lunatic (as "taught" by the "theoreticians") builds a transport for material, and then places the control for that transport, *IN* the transport ... it must, needs be, separate.
//
So the imbeciles treat Data (tables) as Objects. And they remain clueless about the richness of (a) how to design Data, (b) how Data is defined, (c) in the context of the Relational Model.

3. The main reason UML is totally useless, for both Data and Objects, for any sort of Analysis of a system (before the fact of design), for design of the solution, and for documentation of a system after implementation, is this. It has no facility for decomposition, which is essential to understanding a system, both before; during; and after design.

Thus whatever one creates using UML (the OO or OO/ORM mindset) is a complex flat design, with no structure. A non-architecture. The application is one great big single stack, with no structure, a monolith, the very opposite of Architecture.
http://geek-and-poke.com/geekandpoke/2013/7/13/foodprints

Use:
a. IDEF1X for data modelling (plus my Extensions for greater precision and compliance with the RM)
b. SSADM for Process Modelling (full decomposition) for moderately complex systems. Easy to understand for both non-technical and technical people
c. IDEF0 for Process Modelling (full decomposition) for complex systems. Non-technical people need a bit of education.
d. UML for Object definition only (the idiotic "inheritance" as elevated to deity), but not relationships; dependency; hierarchy; meaning; how-does-this-fit-into-the-architecture; etc, which is formally defined [a][b][c].
Post by y***@gmail.com
1. I have noticed you were a great supporter of 5NF/6NF until 2015 circa. Your thought then changed in favour of 3NF. Is this still the case in mid 2020? I think Codd only defined up to 3NF, and any higher normal form is complete "academic" deceive, fraud, trick or rebrand of the original normal forms by DR. E. F. Codd i.e. to my understanding, 3NF is the fullest form of the Only and One original Relational Model defined by Codd, is that correct?
Good that you picked that up.

The history is this. I went from being a senior engineer with a pre-relational platform supplier, into consulting for Relational, with their high-end customers. There were no textbooks or books, just the RM. Thus I managed to stay away from the degradation in the indoctrination system, and the filth that all the textbooks provide. When I came onto the low-end public scene, I was shocked to find that the RM had been perverted, by the very people who were supposed to be progressing it after Codd left the scene. At first I engaged with them, innocently, because I thought they were the authority, and I could correct them here or there. After three years of hard labour at the Date & Darwen Gulag, aka /The Third Manifesto/, aka /Tutorial D/, I formed the conclusion that they were actively suppressing the RM, and running an asylum, in which people engaged in endless argument without resolution. Eg. 30 years and still no replacement for SQL, which they propose is broken, but which is not, it is the perfect data sublanguage for the RM, which Codd defined.

Thus up to a certain point, I accepted that 4NF/5NF/6NF were valid, if only for fools who did not understand the RM, and who were implementing Record ID based filing systems. Note that there are many [17 thus far ?] additional abnormal "normal forms". And after that certain point I concluded that they were wrong because they were intended to KEEP people in the RFS, and avoid the real RM.

You may notice that the freaks have even changed 1NF, to suit their stupid shotgun-in-the-dark approach to temporal data. Truth does not change, if it does, it is not truth. The original 1NF stands, the hell with Date & Darwen's changing "1NF".

So the bottom line for Codd's 3NF is, if understood properly, it eliminates the need for 4NF/5NF, which are only needed for anti-relational systems.

6NF is simply not even an NF, with no definition, no dependency (eg. does it have to be in 3NF first ?). The freaks promote it as the "ultimate NF" (a non-NF is their ultimate NF, like their best woman to spend the night with is a non-woman, a hairy sow lying in pig-swill). Nevertheless, it is important to understand it correctly in the context of Codd's 3NF, whence it is a minor Method, required for a table that requires Pivoting, etc. Again, unworthy of a "NF" categorisation.

Note also that there are *additional* and real NFs in the RM, which the freaks suppress, and never mention.

Codd's 3NF, properly understood, and the Relational Model, properly implemented, actually provides full constraints of all kinds. Not merely DKNF, which even the author (whose head is stuck in the rear crevices of a lactating sow) states as being impossible to achieve. I regularly achieve, via science, that which is impossible by non-science. Full Domain; full Relational Key; and full Other Constraint, Normal Form. That was obviously Codd's intent, as per his RM, thus I do not declare it as separate, but an ordinary progression of his 3NF.

For these and other reasons, I have a complete set of NFs, the definitions of which never change, and that apply across the entire database (the NFs and abnormal "NFs" apply to fragments: single files or tables). No, I will not publish them without the book (that explains the elimination of false NFs and lays out the real NFs). Yes, you can email me directly and I might provide a preview.
Post by y***@gmail.com
2. Could you please explain a bit more the Open Architecture standard from 1984 perfected in 1990 from a non-hardware point of view? (http://www.softwaregems.com.au/Documents/Article/Application%20Architecture/Open%20Architecture.pdf)
I shall open a new thread for that.
Post by y***@gmail.com
I literally found zero results on Google.
You expect to learn something of value from Google ? From the ever-changing cesspool ? That the uneducated masses excrete on a daily basis ? That is biased towards imbeciles and those who submit to the propaganda machine ? That is heavily maintained by those who push the intellectual enslavement agenda ?

It is a great place to look, if you want (a) confusion, (b) definitions that change as often as underwear in a brothel, and (c) guaranteed sub-standard answers from idiots who are clueless that they are ignorant, or from purposeful saboteurs, such as Date; Darwen; Fagin; and their minions.

As confirmed by the fact that you come to me, not Google, for the one and only authoritative answer.

Cheers
Derek
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