Date: Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:52:03 -0400
From: Andrew Sullivan <ajs@crankycanuck.ca>
To: pgsql-sql@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: We all are looped on Internet: request + transport = invariant
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On Fri, Apr 20, 2007 at 05:49:08PM +0300, Dmitry Turin wrote:

> I speak about appied specialists (physicists, biologists, etc), which
> can NOT do that.

> >it's just an afternoon's work
> 
> Not for mentioned people.

I think part of the reason I'm sceptical of your plan is that every
physicist or biologist I ever knew, who had anything to do with
storing large volumes of data, all knew a great deal of Perl.  What
they didn't know, they got the computer-support staff (that was my
job) to build for them.  People who work with data have to learn to
use the tools for processing it.  Nobody ever suggests that stats is
just too hard, so we should make an easy-stats course that just
covers the teeny bit that (say) biologists need to know.  That seems
to be what you are suggesting be done to SQL.  

Now, anyone who knows anything about biology -- or physics, for that
matter -- knows that you actually have to have a good handle on stats
to do any interesting work.  You don't need everything economists
use, though, so you don't learn those bits.  Similarly, I don't
expect a biologist to learn (for instance) the Net::DNS modules for
Perl.  That doesn't mean they can get away without learning a bit
about XML, Perl, and Pg.pm.  

Anyway, I've said enough on this topic.  When you have the start of a
user library that implements your proposal, perhaps you can post it
to -hackers for the response you'll get there.

A

-- 
Andrew Sullivan  | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions.  What do you do sir?
		--attr. John Maynard Keynes