RE: [xml-dev] XML Database Decision Tree?

["Champion, Mike" <Mike.Champion@SoftwareAG-USA.com>]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Dan Weinreb [mailto:dlw@exceloncorp.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, October 30, 2001 12:08 AM
> To: xml-dev@lists.xml.org
> Subject: Re: [xml-dev] XML Database Decision Tree?
> 

> 
> Suppose you want to park your car in a garage while you're not using
> it.  Should you dismantle your car into bolts, ball bearings, shafts,
> cylinders, and so on, putting all the bolts into nice containers
> clearly marked "bolts", all the ball bearings into nice jars labelled
> "ball bearings", and so on?  When you want to take the car out for a
> drive, you just re-assemble it out of all those pieces by joining them
> together.

I personally find this a compelling analogy (even though,as Paul T. says,
sometimes it's a Good Thing to disassemble into unique components).  The
RDBMS people, however, always moan about "this old saw" or "I am so tired of
this stupid car analogy ... It crops up all over the place. It stems from a
failure to understand the relational model,"[
http://www.firstsql.com/dbdebunk/amd1.htm , C. J. Date speaking].

OK, I'm stupid: what's wrong with the analogy? You "should* dismantle the
car into unique components if the components are continually being updated
and you want to make sure that you have the latest and greatest every
morning.  But if you just want to get back the same car you put in, it's
overkill.  What am I missing?