Re: Mapping arbitrary number of attributes to DB

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 2006 21:14:30 GMT
Message-ID: <WsQ%g.10387$cz.160925@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca>

Sampo Syreeni wrote:

> On 2006-10-25, Roy Hann wrote:
>

>> To repeat what I already said in this thread, even the crappiest 
>> so-called SQL DBMSs on the market already solve the problem extremely 
>> well for practical purposes.

>
> I don't think this is true, so we probably disagree about what the
> problem to be solved really is. You seem to think this is a nonissue
> because even the crappiest SQL database allows for schema evolution.
> Fair enough, but somebody skilled in data modeling has to issue those
> DDL statements, that somebody is going to have to be paid for the
> effort, and so there has to be a tangible return on the modeling
> investment before the data can be stored in bona fide relations.

You are begging the question.

> Often the ROI just isn't there eventhough the data is. Instead we only
> know that we have some data, some proper subset of it will be useful
> later on, and so we want to store it, to be sorted out later. It doesn't
> make sense to invest into real data modeling now because later on we'll
> know better which subset of the data is going to be used.

A dbms will allow one to dump each file into a relation that directly reflects the structure of the file. That doesn't cost a whole lot in terms of designing, and it does accomplish exactly what you describe above.

[remainder snipped] Received on Wed Oct 25 2006 - 16:14:30 CDT