Re: We're doomed

"Walter Mitty" <wamitty_at_verizon.net> wrote in message news:584ql.143$gm6.6_at_nwrddc02.gnilink.net...
>
> "Roy Hann" <specially_at_processed.almost.meat> wrote in message
> news:wIudnXcEAcEvjznUnZ2dnUVZ8uednZ2d_at_pipex.net...
>> Apart from our pension funds being shrunk to pocket change and
>> stewing in a cloud of our own CO2, it seems relational databases
>> are doomed too.
>>
>> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/is_the_relational_database_doomed.php?p=2
>>
>> :-)
>>
>> --
>> Roy
>>
>
> Just to take this seriously, if only for a brief moment, here is the
> proposition in a nutshell:
> "The responsibility of ensuring data integrity falls entirely to the
> application."
>
> Two points:
>
> First, this is the way things were before databases began to be used. If
> you go back to the 1960s, you'll find that nearly all applications were
> written exactly this way. It was the bug prone nature of this way of
> doing things that led to the rise of databases to begin with. My choice
> of the 1960s is arbitrary. In different local environments, the
> transition to databases happened much later, or never at all.
>

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. But look at the bright side: it means more work for those who can fix the inevitable screw-ups. More work is a good thing in today's economy (Thank you, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd, and let's not forget to thank their new rubber stamp, Barack Obama.).

> Second, note that "the application" is singular. This way of doing
> business applies only when a database is embedded within a single
> application. If a database is an information nexus allowing multiple
> applications to provide and use shared information, the contracts between
> applications get drawn into the nexus itself. The author makes much of
> the supposed superior scalability of key/value data structures, but there
> is one way in which they scale very poorly: the transition from embedded
> in a single application to operating as a nexus between multiple
> applications.
>
> I guess I should acknowledge that majority of today's new databases are of
> the embedded type rather than of the nexus type. That means we fight most
> of the battles on the other side's turf. Maybe that provides an insight
> into how the keepers of the flame can survive the dark ages. I dunno.
>
>
Received on Sun Mar 01 2009 - 04:34:16 CET