Re: What databases have taught me

From: Keith H Duggar <duggar_at_alum.mit.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 2006 18:35:02 -0700
Message-ID: <1151112902.393590.155950_at_p79g2000cwp.googlegroups.com>


Bob Badour wrote:
> Keith H Duggar wrote:
> > Interesting. Since you still use Java have you taken a
> > look at Rel?
> >
> > http://dbappbuilder.sourceforge.net/Rel.html
> >
> > What are you thoughts on it?
>
> I know you asked Marshall and not me. I didn't understand
> some of the changes to the language like, for instance,
> the requirement for BEGIN/END for the WITH statement. A
> lot of the other additions seemed like syntactic candy
> that don't add functionality -- just complexity and
> language redundancy.

Oh I'm sorry, I never mean to exclude anyone from answering any of my questions. Just the writing sometimes seems more natural to me if directed towards a single person. Thank you for your input.

I'm less curious about specific language designs and more curious about I guess architecture and library issues. For example Rel incorporates a complete DBMS implementation. And the most recent experience I had with a DBMS (DB2) was using the usual client/server architecture to submit queries while most of the analytical computation was actually done in Java.

All that seems a little to heavy for what I want to do; that is incorporate relational concepts and thinking into my tools and simulations. I'm looking for a way to develop stand-alone apps where the relational code operates directly on the data structures used by the rest of the language. Something like the C# example linked before or the Tutorial D examples some have posted in c.d.t before. However, the "compiler" should ultimately include only the DBMS functionality needed to correctly implement the code rather than using a complete black-box DBMS server.

For example, how much relational functionality could one incorporate into say a C++ library with relation classes, RA functions, etc without being a front-end for a full-blown DBMS back-end? Anyone know of any such libraries?

Does it even make sense to talk about a relational language compiler that does not link to a full-blown DBMS?

I think I'm failing to describe such needs using correct relational and/or DBMS terminology. Am I making any sense?

  • Keith -- Fraud 6
Received on Sat Jun 24 2006 - 03:35:02 CEST

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