RE: Re: SUO: What the marketplace needs from us.

[Richard Cooper <rich@valutech.com>]

Title: RE: Re: SUO: What the marketplace needs from us.

> Jean-Luc wrote
 ...
> > THIS is the problem, the bulk of the database
> > is only *ground-level*, and even if stored
> > queries and views are FOL and horn clauses
> > the whole of the database is not homogenous
> > and self-referencable.  For instance you cannot
> > have queries about the stored queries that
> > would have such or such characteristics.
>
> We very much need such facilities, and they are
> not "blue-sky" theory.  They are practical features
> that a well designed system should support.

With RDBs that let you access the metadata, you
can write queries about tables, columns, views,
users, and so on, but I haven't seen any that
let you query about the contents of queries, if
that is what you mean. 

Normally, RDBs have facilities for optimizing
queries, but "optimization" depends on the goals
which depends on usage and on performance requirements,
which aren't represented in RDBs either. 

However, there is nothing to stop you from using
parsers to organize query internals into tables
that can be retrieved with queries, so this is
not a limitation in perpetuity, just a limitation
in the standard product lines that can be fixed
by writing some software to do the needed parsing
and representation of the triples. 

But what kind of use would that be to you?  Since
the optimizers are normally built into the RDBMS,
or like Oracle, they allow you to specify the
physical layout to fit your needs. 

Why do you need to have queries about queries,
and what can you do with that kind of capability?

Thanks,
Rich