John Baker wrote:
A work-mate of mine and were having the same discussion recently. I'm not a big fan of dbases, but maybe that's because I don't have to be...yet.A couple things that could factor when considering dbases: 1. speed 2. additional middleware technology Is the speed of accessing dbase info more efficient than text files with regexes?
Much for large amounts of data. 200 e-mail addresses, probably not.
Ah the beauty of DBI. Write the Perl code once in DBI then just change one line of code no matter what OS or DB you are using.Also when you implement dbase (middleware) code, you've added an additional layer of complexity. And another technology to learn, and I'm all about adapting to technology, but I'm more a fan of the KISS principle. =)
To the original question....
1 word. Network. What happens when all of a sudden your data has to be stored on a different server, but your application stays put. Sure there is NFS, but then your security could be shot to hell and your speed really drops. Or multiple users are hitting the resource at the same time? Have you built in all of the proper locking, etc. Or multiple local users have to access the same resource with the proper locking, etc. better make sure those permissions are correct, etc.
Point being there is a reason why you chose Perl in the first place, because it was probably written by someone who knew more than you, or at the very least more people had the chance to look at it and work on it so it is far more likely to catch all of the little things that take the most time to handle and that end up coming back to bite you later. If flat text files is the way to go for you, say because your boss who can't seem to work his e-mail wants (thinks he wants) to make a change, then by all means check out DBD::CSV, etc. Then later when he leaves for the weekend, install a real DB, change a couple lines of code, and when he comes back, make up a story about insecurity of the old system and why you should get a raise ;-)...
Always use a DB? No, those 6 configuration values you don't want to hard code using constants that only change every 6 months, sure, throw them in a text file and forget about it. Production data...well hopefully not mine.
http://danconia.org
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