On 07/07/2019 20:54, David L Neil wrote: > (However, some of us grew-up at a time when RAM was expensive and even > in our relaxed state, such 'costs' still impinge on our consciousness -
Indeed, my first computer was at the local university and had 64KB. My second computer was a Sinclair ZX81 (Timex in the USA?) with 16K My third, a CP/M machine with 64K and 256K RAM disk and dual floppies - such luxury! :-) So I agree, it is hard to get out of that mode of thinking. But today the minimum RAM is typically 4GB or more. My desktop boxes all have 16GB and even my ancient Netbook has 4G. My 20 year old iBook has 640M and even that is enough to run Python with many thousands of data objects instantiated. > particularly temporary, DB tables into MySQL's MEMORY storage (and with > almost zero code-change/risk)! Yes, I use SQLite's MEMORY facility reguilarly. Not for managing high volumes but where I need flexible search capability. A SQL SELECT statement is much more flexible and faster than any Python search I could cobble together. > (appreciating that I have no difficulty moving from (Python) procedural > programming to (SQL) declarative, but many of our colleagues hate such, > and with a passion) Yes, I've never quite understood why some programmers are reluctant to use SQL. For complex structured data it is by far the simplest approach and usually very efficient, especially with big volumes. But simple searches on small datasets are easier (or as easy) in native Python. -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ http://www.amazon.com/author/alan_gauld Follow my photo-blog on Flickr at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/alangauldphotos _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
