Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!apple!sun-barr!decwrl!ucbvax!pasteur!postgres.Berkeley.EDU!Luis
From: Luis@postgres.Berkeley.EDU (Luis Miguel)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: Source Code Control
Message-ID: <15328@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>
Date: 10 Jul 89 17:19:33 GMT
References: <1052@aber-cs.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU
Organization: UC Berkeley
Lines: 38


> For example, how many sw eng environents/tools out there do support as
> easily and obviously such DBMS features as:
> 
> 	* transactions
> 	* recovery
> 	* auditing
> 	* schemas/data dictionary as part of the database itself
> 	* interactive ad hoc queries
> 	* 4GL interfaces
> 	* ....
> 
> that are assumed as given when using a proper DBMS? My impression is that
> most sw engineering tools and environments around are still in the
> equivalent of Cobol+ISAM age... (or in the case of SCCS/RCS, the Librarian
> one).
>     
	I can say in 2 words why traditional RDBMS's
and the features cited above are not part of SW eng. tools:

	DISASTROUS PERFORMANCE !!!!!!!

	Runing simple queries on commercial RDBMS's
takes on the order of 100 msecs on a Sun 3/260.
With this performance, one cannot hope to do much work
in a reasonable amount of time
(I can cite papers on people who have tried but have been defeated by the performance figures).

As useful as these services are, until they can be
provided with reasonable performance, they will be
largely confined to those areas where they are essential.

/Luis

Luis Miguel. Computer Science Division, UC Berkeley.
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