Posted by --CELKO-- on 01/04/07 16:23

>> Ken writes in the first chapter that he will be using rows/records and columns/fields interchangeably throughout the book. <<

Hopefully that will be fixed in his SQL-2005 book. Since the
Sybase/SQL Server family is built on a file system model (i.e. static
contigous physical storage) it is not such a difference here. But in
Sand, Teradata, Model 204 and other SQL products they use totally
different storage methods. For example, Sand outputs table one column
at a time, not one row at a time. They are assembled from compressed
bit vectors and are not contigous.

>> People who use SQL use these terms interchangeably. <<

No, we don't; SQL Server people and Newbies who are still thinking in
terms of file systems do.

>> The people who make a big deal of it are akin to the people who correct grammar errors to win an argument. <<

No, more like accountants, mathematicians or engineers who insist on
the proper terms, computations and mindsets to solve problems. Or, to
keep you analogy, more like editors and writers who who correct grammar
errors to do their job properly.

>> If they had something useful to say, they would. <<

Gee, after seven good selling books, 800 artifcles and having a few
standard SQL programming techniques named after me, I think I can claim
having had something useful to say :)

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