OscarGunther On Rants (Slashdot)

What the?!... by javelinco
As a rant, this article does a great job. But here's what is missing - what the heck is he talking about? Everything he says is liberally sprinkled with statements telling us these things are self-evident, when they are anything but. He is constantly is referring to how this will clearly show that, or pointing out that this proves this or that later on, but never gets there.

Can anyone summarize what is being said here in some sort of logical way? Because I'm confused. I see the title, I see no information supporting the title (unless, perhaps, I was to do the research myself).
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Re:What the?!... by OscarGunther
Ever read any Trotsky? Or Lenin? Pascal sounds like any of the old Communists (not the later totalitarians, but the true believers who were old enough to have known Marx or Engels personally). His diatribe is entirely typical of the species.

He gratuitously belittles his targets:

"Natural" perhaps for those without a grasp of data fundamentals.
(Yes, Fabian, the co-inventor of SQL probably doesn't have a grasp of data fundamentals.)

He sprinkles his text liberally with "quotes" and italics so you can "feel" his anger, his dismay -- indeed, you can almost hear him spitting the words in Chamberlin's face. You can almost hear him chortling to himself as he bangs away on his keyboard, demolishing his opponents.

He venerates the Founder. Finding a quote that supports your argument settles the matter. Codd the Wise avoided the errors that Chamberlin made; clearly the latter is the inferior intellect. And there's only a small core with the Founder. "We" are the true believers; all others are apostates and heretics.

Overstatement is a definite tell. Chamberlin's explanation of the difference between SQL and XML data is "unbelievable." The nesting argument is "ridiculous." Industry pronouncements are "incoherent." And most prominent of all is the cutting remark that's meaningless to anyone not in the know or already in agreement:

Unbelievable. Any wonder that SQL fails so abysmally at relational fidelity? We may not expect the average practitioner to distinguish between pictures of relations, which are "flat" due to the presentation medium, and relations of N cardinality themselves, which are N-dimensional logical structures. But we sure expect "industry experts" to be aware of the difference.

And I sure expect a polemicist to know enough about his art to understand when he's descended into self-parody.