Re: Proper relational database?

> From: pgsql-general-owner(at)postgresql(dot)org [mailto:pgsql-general-

> This turns out to be true in many areas of language design, mutli-user
system
> security, virtually everything to do with networking, and application
> deployment. I was at an IETF meeting some years ago where someone talking
> about "Internet of Things" stuff was going on at length about how nobody
> around the IETF really understood constrained systems. Standing behind
him
> at the mic was an assortment of grey-bearded men who'd worked directly on
the
> original IMPs (which were 16-bit Honeywells that ran at like 5MHz and had
> IIRC 16Kwords of memory).

Amen to that. I started on embedded systems that ran >1 usec cycle time and
16kb memory. Machine code, no assembler. But I never want to do that again
-- be pleased someone does!

> It's also true that crappy interfaces that are good enough stick around
> anyway. The UNIX Haters' Handbook is full of evidence of how much less
good
> UNIX was, but even Apple gave in. Also, many of the historical
compromises
> turn out, once you start to try to make different ones, to be more
obviously
> defensible.

Amen to that. Replacing SQL is easy when you look at SQL's faults, but not
so easy when you realise its strengths.

> Most of the NoSQL trend was not a hatred of SQL the language but
> a carelessness about the relational syntax or a view that promises about
> consistency are dumb. Then the first credit card number gets lost in an
> eventually-consistent system, and people suddenly understand viscerally
why
> transactions semantics are so hard.

But there is goodness there, and NoSQL is now just as hard to replace.

Regards
David M Bennett FACS

Andl - A New Database Language - andl.org