The ORM Foundation

Hi Mr. Darwen, Although my wad is shot, I do notice I omitted to respond to a few questions and comments from you. Please allow me to do so below, in-line like >> this.  [quote user="hughdarwen"] <snip>  Here I just want to respond further to this, from you: "The reason why nulls are GOOD is ...

Hi Ken, Excellent proposal. I would be glad to comment on your model.    From what I can tell, the domain (or to be precise, Marc's "watered-down version" of it) involves the idea that a person works for a federal agency or a Public Organization (or has no documented work), but does not do both. In ...

Hi Ken, To pick up this thread again: OK: at the close of your last message (to date) on the "To null or not to null" thread, you finished with:    "My original interjection (http://www.ormfoundation.org/forums/t/839.aspx) was intended to bring out the point that it is good practice to design a data model in a way that ...

Clifford    That's extremely well stated, and yes, you're getting down to at least one of the hubs of this whole issue. I agree that the awkwardness, which we have no choice to deal with, comes from the source that you indicate, and thus (I would add) not from any logical sloppiness or incompetence of the "nulls are ...

Hi Mr. Darwen,    It is a great privelege to have you joining in our conversation. Thank you for this. Let me say that I'd much rather sit and listen to you and Mr. Date lecture on this (or any other) topic for a week, than to have to offer up my relatively meager insights on topics that you more educated ones have treated at ...

Dear Ken, Thanks for promoting this discussion to its own thread. I think that will give it the space it needs to breathe. Also, though, I hope other people will feel free to join in the discussion.     I also like your proposal to take things in small chunks. This will allow us to get to the truth more easily. And btw, ...

Dear Ken, You have my deepest apologies for using language that might be construed, if mistakenly, as a put-down of Chris Date. I myself am a big fan of Mr. Date, whom I regard in precisely the same way as your Amazon reviewer does, and I meant no disrespect in calling him a "religious zealot" -- which, for me, is a term ...

Hi Ken, Good to hear from you. Certainly, there are many religious zealots out there (of whom the generally sagacious Chris Date is one) on the issue of nulls and their advantages or disadvantages. Not to make fun of either side, but I'd be interested in finding anyone who could prove that having nulls causes more problems than does ...

P.S. Sorry for the typo in my hypothetical example, it should have read, "WHERE blah-blah is NOT null, THEN return such-and-such, ELSE WHERE blip-blip is NOT null, THEN...." <return so-and-so...> Cheers, Andy

Hi Marc, I think maybe you're saying you'd prefer to have an ELSE clause carry the ball wherever a check for null finds a null -- something like, "WHERE blah-blah is null, THEN return such-and-such, ELSE WHERE blip-blip is null, THEN...." <return so-and-so...> I sympathize, one does intuitively feel the need for ...