4 ms·

Dates aren’t natural. I know of at least three different date keys in different calendars that refer to the same calendar day - choosing to use one particular d

Dates aren’t natural. I know of at least three different date keys in different calendars that refer to the same calendar day - choosing to use one particular date standard to refer to days is choosing a pre-existing synthetic key, not a ‘natural’ one.

mulmen 5y ago
Dates are natural keys. You seem to be conflating format and value. 1,234,567 and 1234567 are the same number. 19-Jun-21 and 2021-06-19 are the same date. Databases already handle this.
- jameshart 5y ago
  19 June 2021 is also known as: Dhuʻl-Qiʻdah 9, 1442 AH 9 Tamuz 5781
  - mulmen 5y ago
    Great! Then if they are unambiguous they can be inserted directly or disambiguated and then inserted. At query time any format can be used to represent them to a user.
    - jameshart 5y ago
      Ah, so you're suggesting instead of storing 'what a person calls this date' as the key, you instead convert it to some underlying representation that you can then choose to present in different calendars - like a UNIX epoch-relative offset or something. Congratulations, you just created another synthetic key for describing dates.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - mulmen 5y ago
        The date is a natural key. The format string is only a representation. Implementation details are irrelevant to the definition of a natural key.
      - goto11 5y ago
        That is not what synthetic key means. A synthetic key is a key which does not carry any information, like an auto-incremented integer. A date is a natural key, regardless of the underlying representation.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> I know of at least three different date keys in different calendars that refer to the same calendar day Aside from the fact that you have very limited knowledge of calebdar systems, I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove. “Natural” in “natural key” doesn't mean “exists in nature outside of human invention”, it means “exists outside the database as part of the data in the data model, rather than being created solely to have a ubique key in the database ubder design". The date in whatever particular calendar system is used in the data model is a natural key for a calendar table.

mulmen 5y ago

Dates are natural keys. You seem to be conflating format and value. 1,234,567 and 1234567 are the same number. 19-Jun-21 and 2021-06-19 are the same date. Databases already handle this.

jameshart 5y ago
19 June 2021 is also known as: Dhuʻl-Qiʻdah 9, 1442 AH 9 Tamuz 5781
- mulmen 5y ago
  Great! Then if they are unambiguous they can be inserted directly or disambiguated and then inserted. At query time any format can be used to represent them to a user.
  - jameshart 5y ago
    Ah, so you're suggesting instead of storing 'what a person calls this date' as the key, you instead convert it to some underlying representation that you can then choose to present in different calendars - like a UNIX epoch-relative offset or something. Congratulations, you just created another synthetic key for describing dates.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - mulmen 5y ago
      The date is a natural key. The format string is only a representation. Implementation details are irrelevant to the definition of a natural key.
    - goto11 5y ago
      That is not what synthetic key means. A synthetic key is a key which does not carry any information, like an auto-incremented integer. A date is a natural key, regardless of the underlying representation.

dragonwriter 5y ago

> I know of at least three different date keys in different calendars that refer to the same calendar day Aside from the fact that you have very limited knowledge of calebdar systems, I’m not sure what this is supposed to prove. “Natural” in “natural key” doesn't mean “exists in nature outside of human invention”, it means “exists outside the database as part of the data in the data model, rather than being created solely to have a ubique key in the database ubder design". The date in whatever particular calendar system is used in the data model is a natural key for a calendar table.