Hans-Peter Diettrich schrieb:
i still find it amazing, though, that in today's world, so many opt to
use a sql database of some kind even for smallish projects where a
nice simple self-designed binary data file would suffice... in many
cases, it is akin to swatting a fly with a hydrogen bomb ;)
What are the alternatives? If you already had to update a binary file
format, for required extensions, you'll know about the problems with the
conversion from the old to the new format, and with the synchronization
of the load and store procedures. A database should do all that
automatically, whenever the common model is updated.
Forgive me my naivity (I never used a database yet)
but just as an example:
If you want to read a complete directory branch
(with thousands of files and directories) every 5
minutes in a loop and want to store this information
together with other information (like date/time
of first appearance) at the end of each loop so
that it's available even after a reboot, would
you use a database for this?
If yes, how would the tree structure be defined
in the database?
I just did this using a simple binary file and
it was quite easy to do and it's speed is amazing.
If my data changes, I simply delete the file
and start from cratch.
I also wrote programs that read multiple versions
of such binary files and I found it quite easy to maintain.
When using a database instead of a binary file I would
need to feed the data from it into the data structures
of my program in the same way anyway.
If I see the delays that applictions like Thunderbird
produce when simply moving an email to another folder
(the hard disk spins for a minute or so) then
I am happy that I never was forced to use a database.
Nearly all (PC) programs that I know and which use
a database for relatively simple data are awfully slow
with anoying delays in unexpected situations.
Of course, for huge data amounts of data you cannot avoid
using a database but I would prefer if programmers think
about performance a bit and not use databases for every
small junk.
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