Posted by Erland Sommarskog on 12/24/06 10:27

Ed Murphy (emurphy42@socal.rr.com) writes:
> --CELKO-- wrote:
>>>> SQL people normally use "rows" and "columns", but we understand
>>>> "records"and "fields" without problem. <<
>>
>> NO. NO, NO! Newbies -- not SQL people -- use "records"and "fields"
>> because they are still thinking in file systems terms and not RDBMS.
>> They keep thinking in terms of file systems and not RDBMS. Trust me;
>> I teach these people how to program in SQL.
>
> It'd help if you would explain what "thinking in file systems terms"
> and "thinking in RDBMS terms" actually mean (for records/rows and for
> fields/columns). Writing it once and subsequently giving out the URL
> would likely be the most efficient approach.
>
> Without such an explanation, newbies are prone to think "oh, this guy
> is just some kook obsessed with unimportant jargon" and dismiss it all.

Ah, but that what it is! We used to called it subroutines or procedures.
Then Smalltalk came along and now its all "methods".

As for SQL people not using "records" or "fields", I have a very trust-
worthy testimony reporting that Celko said "record" in a conferernce
presentation a year ago. But maybe that's why he keeps nagging this
point: to remind himself.



--
Erland Sommarskog, SQL Server MVP, esquel@sommarskog.se

Books Online for SQL Server 2005 at
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/downloads/books.mspx
Books Online for SQL Server 2000 at
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/previousversions/books.mspx

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