> Right, there is never time to do it right and lots of time to do it over.

Purists like to snear when they say this, but in point of fact its often true: its often more efficient to do things good enough for now and fix the things that turn out to need to fixing later (because the real pace of change often means the things that are broken-in-theory, but good-in-enough-in-practice are going to need completely replaced because of requirements changes before they become problematic in practice.)

But its true, OTOH, that lack of knowledge of relational theory, the anomalies that it identifies that are tied to improper data models, and the practical impact of these can lead to poor analysis of the tradeoffs, and that the common cargo-cult rules of thumb (say, for degree of normalization to pursue) that are frequently used in practice are poor substitutes for deep understanding of the relational model and the problem of concern, and analysis of the real risks in the system under design of taking shortcuts.

> I do suggest that you read as carefully my comments as I write them

One of the biggest problems with your comments is that they don't appear to be written carefully -- particularly, if you hope to influence the practitioners that you treat with such condescension, you have failed to put due care into consideration of your approach to the audience, which is a central element of any communication.

> I did not say practitioners ought to be theoreticians, I said they should no engage in a field founded on logic without ANY intro to logic.

You seem to also, however, keep suggesting that either a lack of deep familiarity with relational theory or a disagreement with your interpretation of how that theory ought to shape practice are equivalent to (or can only be a result of) a complete lack of grounding in logic. Whether you are actually conflating these things or just engaging in particularly obnoxious condescension and personal abuse when you do this is less than clear, but neither is helpful or useful.

> In fact, the initial mapping to implementation--direct image SQL implementations--was not in the relational spirit at all and is in large part responsible to logical-physical confusion and confusion of tables with relations.

I'm not sure what you mean by the "relational spirit". SQL's design was clearly shaped by the relational data model, though SQL itself (in its current form as well as its early forms) is certainly not ideal from a relational perspective, even before considering the whole NULL controversy.

> And to call those initial implementations efficient in the technology of the day is from another planet.

The initial implementations weren't what became popular though; the implementations that were efficient were key to driving popularity.

> It just so happened that even the limited relational fidelity of SQL proved superior to the rigidity, complexity and lack of soundness of hierarchic and network technologies.

Sure. I just think that its easy for theory-purists to overstate the degree to which the "lack of soundness" was the problem driving adoption, rather than "rigidity and complexity". Insofar as the linguistic and expressive features of SQL and the relational model proved attractive, simplicity and flexibility were particularly important, and while the capacity for soundness is an important improvement, its one that's been underused since day one. Its simply not the case, as you seem to present, that we've "fallen" to a state where that is ignored from some rosier days when that aspect of RDBMS capacity was strongly embraced and effectively and rigorously used by practitioners.

> Have you ever seen IMS or Codasyl code?

I've even had to write (well, modify) some IMS code, far more recently than I'd prefer to have.

> The problem is lack of fundamental education which has been replaced by tool training.

I don't think that's true. I think that the number of people with "fundamental education" in the field is probably greater than ever before. Sure, the number of people with tool training has increased faster, but that's not tool training replacing fundamental education, its just that with any technology, the first generation of users will all (or, at least, disproportionately) be versed in the underlying principles because they are also the builders of the technology, but over time that's going to fade as, even with more people educated in the principles, people who are just pragmatic users of the technology with a more limited focus are going to grow at a faster rate.

> Practitioners are not even aware that there is something beyond experience with tools that they need to know.

Most practitioners I've encountered seem to be aware that relational theory exists. Sure, lots of them aren't well versed in it or what light it has to shine on their craft, but abstruse descriptions without clearly explained pragmatic benefits aren't an effective way to correct that and motivate them to dig more into theory, and neither is condescension and abuse.