Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!dev!dgis!jkrueger
From: jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Intelligent Databases (was Re: DB Procedures)
Message-ID: <691@dgis.dtic.dla.mil>
Date: 7 Dec 89 19:46:30 GMT
References: <4198@rtech.rtech.com> <7323@sybase.sybase.com> <4220@rtech.rtech.com> <7335@sybase.sybase.com> <3584@dev.dtic.dla.mil> <7400@sybase.sybase.com>
Organization: Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), Alexandria VA
Lines: 39

tim@binky.sybase.com (Tim Wood) writes:

>ADT model vs. DBMS model ??

No, ADT's vs. object-oriented.   Both those models have their merits.

>Good point.  I would be interested to know how many current or projected
>applications out there need high TPS throughput on complex user-defined 
>datatypes.  Or whether most of the TPS-critical stuff operates on prosaic
>things like ints, f4/8's, dates and moneys.

Good point.  I'd like to know too.  But there's also a chicken-and-egg
effect here.  How much TPS-critical stuff doesn't use ADT's because no
one knows how to make them fast?  In how many cases is it also true
that the local folk just don't understand safer methods, and won't be
persuaded by any amount of data that they can be made to go fast?

>Again, it depends on user needs.  Some users might need nothing more
>than BLOB type in the server, and will do most manipulation on the
>front-end, at least for the near term.  Anyone want to comment?

Then they don't have data types.  They have shared persistent storage.
Outside of atomicity and serializability, it's not that different
from ordinary files.

>As for "bignum"s, I don't have an application idea offhand (although
>tracking the Federal debt might be one. :-)  You?

Yep, you're dead on.  Money datatypes are usually fixed width.  They do
all right for dollars; lira or yen are problems.  Arbitrary sizing is
an efficient way to handle sizing between currencies and inflation
within currencies.  Of course, the implementation of such animals
brings up a host of embedded language problems.

-- Jon
-- 
Jonathan Krueger    jkrueger@dtic.dla.mil   uunet!dgis!jkrueger
Isn't it interesting that the first thing you do with your
color bitmapped window system on a network is emulate an ASR33?