Re: Relational Model and Search Engines?

"Anthony W. Youngman" <wol_at_thewolery.demon.co.uk> wrote in message news:53FJmwHEI9mAFweF_at_thewolery.demon.co.uk...

> Which is why MultiValue, Tree, and most other models that muddle up
> theory and implementation will kick the sh*te out of relational when you
> actually run them in the real world ...

I'm not sure quite what you meant by this. What you run in the real world, isn't a model. It's the real thing.

I'm not familiar enough with any MV or Hierarchical products to make the comparison. But I think it's fair to compare VAX DBMS (A CODASYL database product) with VAX Rdb/VMS (a relational database product). They both had a common layer of code, called KODA, way below the surface. Going back about 20 years, in the heydey of the two products, a VAX DBMS application would "seriously outperform" a VAX Rdb/VMS application, given comparable loads and resources. I wouldn't go so far as to say "kick the crap out of".

Why? Once you do all the tuning and optimization, one of them gives you a pointer, and the other gives you a foreign key, and an index, from which you can get one or more pointers. The pointer is faster. Actually, Rdb/VMS had a datatype, called DB:KEY which you could use to "cheat". You could use a column of this type to implement your own graph when you wanted to, provided you were willing to pay the price.

But don't tell the bishops of the first relational church. They don't know we're here. (Reference to the old joke about heaven). Received on Fri May 07 2004 - 20:57:49 CEST