I'm reading, and enjoying immensely, Fabial Pascal's book "Practical Issues in Database Management." Though I've just gotten started with the book, he seems to be saying that modern RDBMSs aren't as faithful to relational theory as they ought to be, and that this has many *practical* consequences, e.g. lack of functionality. Given that PostgreSQL is open source, it seems a more likely candidate for addressing Pascal's concerns. At least the potential is there. Some questions: 1) Is PostgreSQL more faithful to relational theory? If so, do you find yourself using the additional functionality afforded by this? e.g. does it really matter to what you do in your daily work. 2) If PostgreSQL is *not* significantly more faithful to relational theory than commercial RDBMSs, is it at least on the road to becoming more faithful? 3) If PostgreSQL is not on the road to becoming more faithful to relational theory and purity, why not? Is it due to the fact that various SQL standards are themselves not fully faithful to relational theory, and most RDBMSs have as a primary design goal to be faithful to standards (which Pascal implies *are* relationally deficient)? 4) Which database, commercial or non-commercial, is most faithful to relational theory itself, or is headed in that direction the quickest? Dana
