I almost didn’t read this loooong article and was simply going to leave a short piece of advice that goes something like this: write shorter.
But I have often read comments by idiots who have clearly not bothered to read the article or watch the video on which they are commenting, and thought “no, idiot, you are going to have to read the article first”.
And then I came across this bit:
“If at any point in the following exploration you get bored, you can skip right down to the final section—titled “Normalisation is not about databases”. And you’ll still get the most important point. But me, I like the scenic route. Shall we begin?”
By then I was hooked so I read the whole damn thing.
Even when I got to this bit: “And here’s an entire paragraph you might wish to skip!”, I skipped on through rather than over.
I read the weekly blogs of another scientist known for his logorrhoea and have often wondered why he does not offer a shorter more condensed version for those who do have the time to be bored. But, of course, we now have LLM that can do this reasonably effectively.
But you do miss the scenery:
“So you think you're a Romeo.
You're playing a part in a picture-show.
Well, take the long way home.
Take the long way home”
My father-in-law was a sort of modern-day polymath and his advice to me that I remember most is “forget speed reading” - and he read seven books at a time! - “take your time; think, absorb, and savour”.
Take the long way home.
And then I read this: “I’ll keep this simple” and “I’ve trimmed the rules to keep this short.” Oh, shit! But then this: “As an aside Greg Kremniz has an insanely good overview of these rules on Quora”. Oh, double shit!
Awww thank you Dr.Jo. How super kind of you to say and how flattering (and honoured I am) to be included “in print” Thoroughly made my day (they don’t let me out much, so…) and very happy to be able to give a little bit back when gaining so much from your writings.
Very much looking forward to your next insightful, intelligent, interesting, inspiring, intrinsically fascinating, funny as fuck and not wrong (despite your title) instalments.
I went to one of the first Oracle conferences back in the late 80s. They were delighted to get Codd as their keynote speaker. He went through his 13 rules and then proceeded to explain why Oracle wasn't compliant with most of them and hence wasn't an RDBMS at all. The expression on Larry Wall's face, behind him on the platform, is with me still.
This post reminded me, for whatever reason, of Henry Baker’s criticism of the use of relational databases for commercial manufacturing applications, and the response tho his criticism..
I'm guessing that you're going to link proper spreadsheet usage with properly linking of thoughts (beliefs that may be true) together with no clashes (in any way (which happens with me)) and no duplicates of the same thought at different times, etc. I quite often have to re-arrange my beliefs. And I didn't know about proper spreadsheet organization, so thanks.
I almost didn’t read this loooong article and was simply going to leave a short piece of advice that goes something like this: write shorter.
But I have often read comments by idiots who have clearly not bothered to read the article or watch the video on which they are commenting, and thought “no, idiot, you are going to have to read the article first”.
And then I came across this bit:
“If at any point in the following exploration you get bored, you can skip right down to the final section—titled “Normalisation is not about databases”. And you’ll still get the most important point. But me, I like the scenic route. Shall we begin?”
By then I was hooked so I read the whole damn thing.
Even when I got to this bit: “And here’s an entire paragraph you might wish to skip!”, I skipped on through rather than over.
I read the weekly blogs of another scientist known for his logorrhoea and have often wondered why he does not offer a shorter more condensed version for those who do have the time to be bored. But, of course, we now have LLM that can do this reasonably effectively.
But you do miss the scenery:
“So you think you're a Romeo.
You're playing a part in a picture-show.
Well, take the long way home.
Take the long way home”
My father-in-law was a sort of modern-day polymath and his advice to me that I remember most is “forget speed reading” - and he read seven books at a time! - “take your time; think, absorb, and savour”.
Take the long way home.
And then I read this: “I’ll keep this simple” and “I’ve trimmed the rules to keep this short.” Oh, shit! But then this: “As an aside Greg Kremniz has an insanely good overview of these rules on Quora”. Oh, double shit!
Awww thank you Dr.Jo. How super kind of you to say and how flattering (and honoured I am) to be included “in print” Thoroughly made my day (they don’t let me out much, so…) and very happy to be able to give a little bit back when gaining so much from your writings.
Very much looking forward to your next insightful, intelligent, interesting, inspiring, intrinsically fascinating, funny as fuck and not wrong (despite your title) instalments.
Mat ✌🏻❤️🇬🇧
p.s The longer the better. Hee hee
I went to one of the first Oracle conferences back in the late 80s. They were delighted to get Codd as their keynote speaker. He went through his 13 rules and then proceeded to explain why Oracle wasn't compliant with most of them and hence wasn't an RDBMS at all. The expression on Larry Wall's face, behind him on the platform, is with me still.
This post reminded me, for whatever reason, of Henry Baker’s criticism of the use of relational databases for commercial manufacturing applications, and the response tho his criticism..
https://plover.com/~mjd/misc/hbaker-archive/letters/CACM-RelationalDatabases.html
https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/135226.376116
I'm guessing that you're going to link proper spreadsheet usage with properly linking of thoughts (beliefs that may be true) together with no clashes (in any way (which happens with me)) and no duplicates of the same thought at different times, etc. I quite often have to re-arrange my beliefs. And I didn't know about proper spreadsheet organization, so thanks.
Soooo guilty of Excel-abuse, lol, wish I’d stuck with databases in the 80’s, stuck with the science though. That paid off.
Love it, thanks, awaiting another dollop.