Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!dev!dgis!jkrueger
From: jkrueger@dgis.dtic.dla.mil (Jon)
Newsgroups: comp.databases
Subject: Re: Relational Database, with a Graphical type field
Message-ID: <906@dgis.dtic.dla.mil>
Date: 29 Jun 90 02:40:34 GMT
References: <1700.26863d4e@spacm1.uucp> <898@dgis.dtic.dla.mil> <1189@abcom.ATT.COM> <2873@tellab5.tellabs.com> <6207@tekgen.BV.TEK.COM>
Organization: Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC), Alexandria VA
Lines: 44

moiram@tekcae.CAX.TEK.COM (Moira Mallison) writes:

>Advances in database technology will ideally make the DBMS smarter.
>A BLOB does not.  "All I've got is a whole bunch of bytes.  I don't
>know what to do with them.  You better figure that out."  The more
>information that can be stored in the DBMS, the less effort will
>be expended to build applications around it.   What is stored in
>the DBMS can be more easily shared and re-used.

Strongly agree.

I like to ask people if they would tolerate a DBMS which had no date or
date/time data type.  What's the problem?  You can just use seconds
since 1970, right?  You don't mind coding conversion routines into each
application, do you?  Writing parsing and query generation into
otherwise trivial programs?  OK, how about storing dates in a group of
text fields, then you don't have to do that, you just lose integrity
(e.g. dates like "9/9/99" or "2/29/81"), programmer productivity try
selecting on a data range) and performance (try executing the above
select).

Most people begin to agree that ADT's are a Good Thing for DBMS.

For hard core cases I ask if they would tolerate a DBMS without an
integer type.  What's the problem?  Just store them as bitstrings, you
can write your own math routines, right?  Integers -- who needs 'em.
Also floats -- I can write my own IEEE compliant math into every
application.

I haven't yet had anyone say that's OK.

Then I like to opine that someday we'll feel the same way about a DBMS
without support for user-defined data types.  It's all a matter of
where we draw the line.  Today we accept DBMS that support basic data
types important to business.  Some day we'll want more.  We won't need
them for every application, but then every application doesn't need
database management either.  Finding the right tool for the job will
be more straightforward someday.  Right now it can be a frustrating
exercise in weighing tradeoffs.

-- Jon
-- 
Jonathan Krueger    jkrueger@dtic.dla.mil   uunet!dgis!jkrueger
Drop in next time you're in the tri-planet area!