Re: native xml processing vs what Postgres and Oracle offer

On Nov 10, 3:33 pm, whileone <Sandy.Pittendr..._at_gmail.com> wrote:
> On Nov 10, 1:20 pm, paul c <toledobythe..._at_oohay.ac> wrote:> Forums are *not* inherently hierarchical. You can choose to present
> > them that way, but it's not necessary and possibly misleading.
>
> Oy yoy yoy.
> This thread started off by me (with a different reader, different
> login name)
> saying "I have a files-based forum that I WROTE that I want to convert
> to a more database like system."
>
> Well, MY FORUM is hierarchical. I want to preserve that.
> In my forum every post is either a topic heading, a response
> directly to a topic heading, or a response to a response.
>
> The parent/child relationships are important.
> I was not at any point referring to usenet.
> The subject was: forums that happen to be hierarchical,
> but you had to read too carefully to gather that, perhaps.

Actually, usenet is often displayed as being hierarchical, for instance with so called "threaded" newsreaders, because within a list of discussions, replies to replies are often more comprehensible when you can follow the subthreads.

This is not just your preference, this is a very typical way of viewing discussions, if you get any flack from that, its not because of the nature of your design, its the fault of the relational advocates that get blinded to these sorts of problems for which the relational data model is not the optimal solution. As you pointed out, even the major vendors are supporting different solutions, any flack you'll get is simply from those dogmatic enough to pound every fixture with a hammer, even if that particular fixture might be better fastened with a screwdriver.

Not everyone with a relational bent is like that, but when posting here you sort of have to put up with that particular breed of poster. 2 cents. Received on Wed Nov 19 2008 - 16:41:11 CET