Roy Lyseng wrote:
Jim Starkey wrote:
Roy Lyseng wrote:
Jim Starkey wrote:
My thinking about blobs has changed. Blobs originally were an
escape from fixed length SQL types. Now that I've abandoned fixed
length SQL types, the utility of blob as a declared type diminishes
to about nothing. Nimbus will retain clob/blob types to humor the
traditional, but they will (probably) be synonyms for string and
bytes, respectively. There will still be a storage type for blobs,
but it will be dynamic, based on a length threshold. (Why, I can
hear you asking? Simple: There is no point to slop around a
high-res jpeg to update a last_reference column in the same row.)
I guess VARCHAR existed before BLOB/CLOB, so I am not so sure about
that...
Uh, for a little historical context, try this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_large_object
Hm, when was VARCHAR first used, and when did you have the BLOB
implemented in RDB?
As an aside, I implemented a datatype called "sequence" in the DBMS
Techra in 1984. The sequence was a sequence of any structured type,
such as points (implemented polygons), characters (implemented CLOBs)
or variable-sized strings (implemented text documents). The sequence
could be operated on as a whole or on ranges of elements - so we could
e.g. add another point to a polygon - with full transactional support.
I believe VARCHAR was in SQL at the time, but SQL was only one of many
competing database languages at the time. Bill Noyce (project leader of
Rdb/VMS) and I (project leader of Rdb/ELN) agreed that the Rdb products
should support SQL, I designed the BLR (binary language representation)
to support SQL, but DEC management didn't see any overwhelming
imperative to support it. Interbase implemented client-side SQL long
before DEC did.
The interesting thing about blobs is how little time it took from their
introduction to their near universal acceptance.
Don't ask my about my opinion about the concept tiny, short, and large
blobs.
--
Jim Starkey
President, NimbusDB, Inc.
978 526-1376
_______________________________________________
Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~drizzle-discuss
Post to : [email protected]
Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~drizzle-discuss
More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
