Re: delimited/separated structures of string data (was: Wishing trolls away)

From: Anthony W. Youngman <wol_at_thewolery.demon.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 17 May 2004 09:09:56 +0100
Message-ID: <eM9wo6BUNHqAFw4c_at_thewolery.demon.co.uk>


In message <40a75d9b$0$568$e4fe514c_at_news.xs4all.nl>, mAsterdam <mAsterdam_at_vrijdag.org> writes
>Dawn M. Wolthuis wrote:
>
>> Mikito Harakiri wrote:
>[snip]
>>>So Pick is dead. Get over it.
>> That's the type of logic I like to see. But perhaps you are right
>>that
>> there is no more use for tag-delimited nested structures of string data (aka
>> PICK). smiles. --dawn
>
>:-)
>
>Ah! So that what PICK is about.
>Is that just PICK or MV in general?

MV in general.
>
>There is a *lot* of delimited/separated structures of
>string data floating around in(as you are well aware).
>It's easy to program - I've seen a lot of roll-your-own
>(RYO) formats in use.
>
>This raises two more questons.
>
>The obvious question would be:
>So what makes PICK/MV especially suitable for this?

Because that is the fundamental underlying design. Why is SQL so good at accessing tables? Because it was designed to do exactly that!

It also happens (because it was designed in the days when disks were slow and small) that it separates the data from the definition (which XML does to some extent but far less rigorously), and (amazingly from the viewpoint of a program designed in the sixties) it originally just used the disk as virtual memory, and saved its data by flushing real to virtual memory! And to do that, it needed every trick in the book to make sure that it didn't waste any disk access cycles...
>

Sorry - can't answer the rest...

Cheers,
Wol

-- 
Anthony W. Youngman - wol at thewolery dot demon dot co dot uk
HEX wondered how much he should tell the Wizards. He felt it would not be a
good idea to burden them with too much input. Hex always thought of his reports
as Lies-to-People.
The Science of Discworld : (c) Terry Pratchett 1999
Received on Mon May 17 2004 - 10:09:56 CEST

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