Re: Object-relational impedence

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> On Wed, 5 Mar 2008 11:34:05 +0000, Eric wrote:
>
> > On 2008-03-04, Dmitry A. Kazakov <mailbox_at_dmitry-kazakov.de> wrote:
>
> > I don't believe that merely using an RDBMS will solve all problems. What
> > I meant was that, accepting what David said above, if you keep your data
> > in an RDBMS, it will be easily available for the solution of any
> > possible problem that can be solved using that data.
>
> No, this as well is wrong. Keeping "data" in RDBMS puts certain
> restrictions on what can be stored there and how it can be used later.

As far as "what can be stored", isn't this a vendor-implementation issue? Most RDBMS strive for efficiency over flexibility in column content, but the tradeoff can be tilted in favor of flexibility if need be. As far as "how it can be used", what is an example? A RDMBS cannot stop you from doing anything you want to with retrieved data. And, you can stick all kinds of meta data about an item to make retrieval simpler and/or faster.

I agree there are very specialized niches where RDBMS performance cannot beat a custom-rolled database-like tool. But a custom-built tool for very specific and narrow usage patterns will almost always beat a general-purpose DB. RDBMS do better where any given data item may be used by multiple people for multiple different purposes that are hard to anticipate up-front.

> Regards,
> Dmitry A. Kazakov

-T- Received on Wed Mar 05 2008 - 23:27:58 CET