Re: OO and relation "impedance mismatch"

From: Marshall Spight <mspight_at_dnai.com>
Date: Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:33:14 GMT
Message-ID: <e1A8d.205504$3l3.133046@attbi_s03>

"Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net> wrote in message news:GKGdnXGxGO55FPzcRVn-jg_at_comcast.com...

> What makes a database different from temporary storage is not RAM vs Disk,
> IMO. It's persistence and shareability.

To my mind, the persistence issue is orthorgonal to data management. What makes a dbms different from files or C++ data structures in RAM is the management capabilities: structure, integrity, manipulation.

Persistence is a useful feature, but not required to qualify as a dbms. An all-in-memory, non-persistent SQL engine would still be a dbms. It would not be useful for banking apps, sure, but it would have its niche. (And it would be fast, eh?)

Marshall Received on Tue Oct 05 2004 - 11:33:14 CDT