Re: Some Laws

"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote in message news:k7-dnbmhe-68JtPcRVn-rw_at_comcast.com...
>
> "Marshall Spight" <mspight_at_dnai.com> wrote in message
> news:9ou3d.73746$MQ5.60025_at_attbi_s52...
> > "--CELKO--" <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:18c7b3c2.0409190532.7d4a59d2_at_posting.google.com...
>
> > Here are some that do:
> >
> > [Anything that writes files that it later reads back in.]
> >
>
> I disagree. There are applications that work just fine using nothing but
> some kind of tree shaped file under it.
> A few months ago c.d.t. had a constant barrage of input on why Pick
> applications delivered more bang for the buck than relational DBMS
> applications.
>
> I think the admiration for those applications was overextended. I think
> that they were a certain class of applications, ones that can remain both
> stable and relevant. And I think the notion that the RDM has been a big
> distraction from forward progress is just plain wrong. But that class of
> applications is of interest.
>
> Now, I'm talking about relational (or SQL) modeled data vs. MV modeled
> data. That skirts your original point, of files vs DBMS. But I think they
> are related issues.

Yeah, okay. Sometimes I make over-broad claims for shock value.

But I still think that the category of applications that could benefit from a DBMS is much larger than the category that actually uses them, and I think this is an artifact of the heavy early commercialization of the RM vs. other ways of doing things. (How many commercial "tree shaped file" manager packages can you name? How many non-commercial RDBMSs can you name?) (In other words, Larry Elison is to blame. :-)

Photoshop could really use an RDBMS. Any online calendar program could really use an RDBMS. Anything that needs to make atomic updates of data structures could really use an RDBMS. How many applications do you think could benefit from declarative integrity constraints? How many could benefit from content-addressibility?

Marshall Received on Mon Sep 20 2004 - 17:22:01 CEST