Re: how to build a database from scratch

David Cressey wrote:
...
> Suggesting that someone build a DBMS without transaction managment and
> concurrency control makes about as much sense as suggesting that someone
> build a compiler without a code generator. And, as DBMS_Plumber has begun
> to explain, these are not features that you want to retrofit as an
> after-thought.
> ...

I don't think d-plumber has begun to explain at all. After-thoughts are nearly always a waste of time and contrary to the exercise of making any program. But I don't recall advocating after-thoughts as having anything to do with making programs. What is important in making any implementation is to separate concepts. Entangling notions of concurrency with btree algorithms is a mistake because humans are generally not capable of meshing the two.

> Plumber has lots more to say on this than I do, but if you've never studied
> the internals of any DBMS then you've got the opportunity to learn a lot
> from this discussion.

I knew quite a lot of a product that Codd was willing to be architect of, even though it wasn't at the time relational as far as Codd was concerned. Won't mention its name since various people made a hash of my beautiful code, haha. Negotiations fell through because of egos and job titles, not his magnificent daily rate which I admired, never matched by me but which I thought he deserved, even if I thought he was wrong on a couple of points.

WADR, David, I'm not capable of sustaining, as you put it, a "reasonable conversation", since I'm not product-oriented, in fact I'm an outrageous radical when it comes to these points and maybe I've only gone nuts after banging my head against walls for many years. These days, motorcycles are more fun for me.

Best of luck,
p Received on Thu Dec 07 2006 - 02:25:26 CET