>From: Howard Stearns <hstearns at wisc.edu>
>Reply-To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>To: The general-purpose Squeak developers 
>list<squeak-dev at lists.squeakfoundation.org>
>Subject: Re: relational for what? [was: Design Principles Behind Smalltalk, 
>  Revisited]
>Date: Tue, 02 Jan 2007 15:16:22 -0600
>
>Of course. No question.  Except, of course, where they don't. The 3-tier 
>enterprise software scenario is -- to me -- an example of it NOT working.

I think this is due to your bad experiences with bad implementations.

>I used to write expert system software. A fellow once asked, "But couldn't 
>I do that with Fortran?" The answer was, "Yes, and you could do it with 
>pencil and paper, too, but you wouldn't want to."
>
>There's a whole bunch of problems for which pencil and paper are good 
>enough, but maybe not ideal. Same for RDBMS. And there's all sorts of 
>practical considerations in this range. Worse is Better, End to End, and 
>whatever you like. No one is (I hope!) going to walk away from a solution 
>in-hand that is good enough.
>
>There are also problems for which pencil and paper really aren't suited 
>for. Same for RDBMS. They can be made to work with the great expenditure of 
>resources, chewing gum, bailing wire, duct tape, vise grips, etc. And half 
>of all enterprise IT projects fail. And yet even with this knowledge, 
>there's still a 50% chance that you can make an RDBMS work on the wrong 
>kind of problem if you throw enough money at it.

Completely agree.

>What I'm trying to do -- and of course, this isn't a Squeak question at 
>all, but I hope it is a Squeak community question -- is try to learn what 
>domain a perfectly running RDBMS is a good fit for by design, compared with 
>a perfectly running alternative (even a hypothetical one).

Programmer time.  How long will it take to make the RDBMS run perfectly (for 
some definition of perfectly) vs. writing this alternative.

It is the same argument of using an existing DSL vs. just writing it by hand 
in your favorite language.

_________________________________________________________________
>From photos to predictions, The MSN Entertainment Guide to Golden Globes has 
it all. http://tv.msn.com/tv/globes2007/