relational for what? [was: Design Principles Behind Smalltalk, Revisited]

Joshua Gargus schwa at fastmail.us
Thu Jan 4 21:16:51 UTC 2007


On Jan 4, 2007, at 11:40 AM, J J wrote:
>
>> That's not rule out the possibility of stupidity, arrogance,   
>> excessive cost, etc..  But it does cast doubt on the  
>> unsubstantiated  claim that Google could "do exactly the same  
>> thing with a lot less  CPUs".
>
> Well, it would be time consuming (and probably expensive) to prove,  
> but I still think the statement is ok.  But it will be big boxes  
> and big CPUs with lots of through-put.

Well, if you say so.  I'm no expert.

>
>> As you mentioned in a follow-up email, this wasn't the paper you   
>> meant.  Although it has nothing whatsoever to do with RDBMSes, I   
>> would recommend anyone who has enough free time to learn enough   
>> Haskell to read that paper.
>>
>> Did you happen to find the intended link?
>
> Yes,
> http://lambda-the-ultimate.org/node/1896

Thanks, that looks interesting.  It actually is related to the  
original link.

>
>> Certainly RDBs are essential to the operations of the modern   
>> enterprise, but how much of this is because RDBs are really the  
>> best  imaginable approach to this sort of thing, and how much is  
>> due to a  complicated process of co-evolution that has resulted in  
>> the current  enterprise software ecosystem?
>
> Here I think you envision more religious fervor behind my words  
> than exist.

My apologies, I can see how you might read it that way.  I'm not  
saying that you are arguing that RDBs are the best imaginable  
approach; I was trying to re-state Howard's initial question.  As I  
understood it, the question was not about whether an RDBMS is the  
appropriate choice in a given situation (given time and cost  
constraints, etc.), but whether we know enough now to make  
fundamentally better choices if we magically found ourselves with the  
resources to "burn the disk packs" and start over.

Josh


>




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