Re: Specifying all biz rules in relational data

"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> writes:
> This is significant. There are probably millions of sites that run things
> originally designed and written some thirty years ago, and that code
> arguably has not yet reached "sunset". If it ain't broke (except for bugs),
> don't fix it. But that doesn't mean that new code should necessarily be
> written along the same lines.
>
> Looking back to the earlier discussion, the question was about whether biz
> rules should be coded as data, and enforced in the DBMS, or not. Your
> earlier comment about efficiency beating elegance 24/7 has to be taken in
> context.
>
> It depends. If the overhead of doing things "elegantly" is on the order of
> 20%, and if that can be compensated for by some additional hardware, and
> if the "elegant" solution buys you something that lowers cost somewhere
> else, it may be the case that elegance actually beats efficiency.
>
> Having said that, I know some COBOL or BASIC shops that would have run be
> out of there if I had suggested implementing the rules in the DBMS. In some
> circumstances, this can be a position well taken. In other circumstances,
> it's just resistance to change.

amdahl gave a talk in the early 70s at mit ... which included some of the business planning he had used to get funding for his new computer company. at that time, he said they calculated that there was at least $100b in 360 mainframe application software .... and that even if ibm chose to totally walk away from 360s at that moment .... just the existing 360 software application base would keep amdahl in business for at least 30 years.

one of the issues (behind the scenes at the time), there was an ibm project called future systems that was going to completely replace 360 ... and was going to be more different from 360 ... than 360 had been from everything else
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subtopic.html#futuresys

of course future system was killed and never did replace 360s ... and customers have continued to develop traditional 360 based applications.

this was all when legacy just met mainframes.

the '96 m'soft developers conference at moscone ... while there was quite a bit of talk about "internet" ... the constraint refrain in all the sessions was "protecting your investment" .... aka all you legacy "visual basic" developers.

-- 
Anne & Lynn Wheeler | http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/