On Thu, 2007-12-20 at 08:24 -0800, Steve Meier wrote: > The point of the rdb engine over flat files is avoid writting a lot of > code to handle the flat files. Code that would be a lot of work and in > the end would likely be a rdb engine (in my opnion). Why not just use an > rdb to start with?
I'm going to quote a friend of mine, Julian Todd (who writes CAM algorithms for a living). He is blogging about a hypothetical database for holding records of Freedom of Information act requests on mysociety.org http://www.freesteel.co.uk/wpblog/2007/11/templateemail_document/ Julian likes flat files. """ Unfortunately, the design of the database is non-obvious, and no matter how well you try to set it up, there will always be missing cases. Possibly very important ones. In the real world, difficult software is a process, not a finished product. It’s no good hoping for it to be great when it is complete, because it won’t ever be complete, therefore a design which allows the system to perform at various stages of incompleteness is going to be necessary if you are to avoid disappointment. Now, it would be true to say that my theories of software design go against the prevailing practice. To me, databases exist only to make software run quicker, and generally provide a hindrance to the design and experimentation process. If premature optimization is the root of all evil, then databases are the devil’s post-it notes. """ I especially like the second paragraph. -- Peter Clifton Electrical Engineering Division, Engineering Department, University of Cambridge, 9, JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FA Tel: +44 (0)7729 980173 - (No signal in the lab!) _______________________________________________ geda-user mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-user
