Re: I think that relational DBs are dead. See link to my article inside

From: Josip Almasi <joe_at_vrspace.org>
Date: Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:51:22 +0200
Message-ID: <ea7s0o$k86$1@ss408.t-com.hr>

Ed Prochak wrote:
>

>>Sure. But as I stated earlier, IMHO it's not up to model, it's due to
>>vast resources that have been spent on RDBMS research and development.

>
> This is the one point I cannot let pass unchallenged.
> When the Relational model was first being implemented into a DBMS
> product, the Network Model was king. There were not vast resources
> forcing the Relational Model onto the programming field. It was
> practical software engineers that saw the advantages. from that grew
> the behemouth that is now ORACLE. (at least that is what I understand
> as the main source of "vast resources" that you mention). You are not
> fighting ORACLE marketting droids in this discussion.
>
> But maybe I misread your comment. Further detail is welcome.

OK, then let's finish, techie part is over, no reason to crosspost further.

Vast resources from the above count in brain power rather than brainwashing power. Endless engineer-hours spent on r&d etc etc. Plus marketing of course.

Back in the day it wasn't Oracle but IBM who pushed the tech... IIRC all these people (Codd, Boyce, Chamberlain... except Ellison;)) were with IBM. [1]
BTW these days IBM had monopoly and had abused it, as was proven later. And I know of NDB oldtimers still bitching about that:) Even calling Codd idiot and everyone using RDBMS too:)))) (when both side fanatics call me idiot I know I'm right;)) And IMHO Network model wasn't that much of a king as you seem to think. I.e. I had a chance to work on a PDP-11, it's RSX OS doesn't even have directory trees, it's a 2d matrix:) Like, you cd 0,0 instead of cd /:) I guess that designers thought of file system like file closet with 256x256 drawers for files:) Well it didn't have dir trees but it had versioning... and integrated DBMS:) A record manager AFAIK.

But the bottom line is, it doesn't matter if Dmitry has better model, since IBM can invest 1000 times more engineers to work on their software. Even if Dmitry manages to make better product, IBM will simply buy him off. As happened with informix for their red brick [2]. BTW these days I was in informix. Didn't work on dbms but with dbms, learned some about their inner workings anyway.

And at the end, ibm or oracle, Dmitry or someone else, all the same. See, David doesn't beat Goliat, it's a fairy tale;)

Regards...

[1]
http://www.research.ibm.com/resources/news/20030423_edgarpassaway.shtml

[2]
http://www-306.ibm.com/software/data/informix/redbrick/ Received on Wed Jul 26 2006 - 08:51:22 CDT