Re: Which Database (MySQL, Oracle, mSQL, Protgress etc.)

On Tue, 24 Feb 1998 06:04:23 -0500, D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy_at_druid.net> wrote:
>Christopher Browne wrote:
>> As the morons move from two tier client server applications (that put a
>> heavy load directly onto the RDBMSes) to using three tiers and more,
>> they are increasingly using things like TP monitors that are responsible
>> for handling transaction management. This takes responsibility for this
>> away from the RDBMS.
>
>But if you move transaction management out of the RDBMS and into
>userland code then you no longer have a relational system. You
>just have a DBMS. It may have some relational features but so
>does dBase.

And that may support the argument that relational databases may be losing force in the marketplace at least in terms of people using them in *relational* form.

There is still extensive use made of old mainframe systems like IMS that predate the introduction of relational databases. People from *that* realm seem to like the *really* high performance that you get from not having to "waste time" validating data relationships.

At the other end, people that hacked together Xbase systems that never worried about enforcing the relationships probably still don't even now that RDBMSes provide some tools to help make it work.

The consideration that the RDBMS vendors provide varying degrees and kinds of functionality in terms of locking/triggers/stored procedures just doesn't help. If you know how to do something with Oracle, it doesn't necessarily help you do it with Sybase.

If you want to use the *common* functionality between the different systems, then you have to throw away quite a lot of the "relationalness" of the systems. Which makes it all the more attractive to move the validation into a separate "business objects" tier, and cut down further on what is enforced within the DBMS.

I'm not saying that this is theoretically desirable, only that it seems to be happening. And that there's enough reasons for it that it could readily turn into a trend.

-- 
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