Re: Ada Calendar oddity <was Re: C date package>

["Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" <tarjei@online.no>]

Charles Hixson wrote:
> It's certainly nice for a programmer to have the choice of using a relational
> database, but for many applications it is extreme overkill, and causes the
> applications to bloat so much that more expensive hardware is required to run them.
> Sometimes one even wants to store the data in a flat file, load it all into RAM at
> program start, and then (maybe) write out any changes at the end.  Relational is
> only one option.

It is usually the other way around. One finds that the use of a database
make it possible to get more from your data. And the various report
tools gives you a lot of interesting possibilities which you don't
normally get if you do everything by yourself. That is why databases are
popular. If the database requires a hot iron to run it, it just means
that you either have done a bad programming job or you underestimated
the size of the project.

In fact a lot of people are spending time moving a lot of flat files to
databases in order to get database benefits.

> If you are talking about the predefined types, then sometimes yes, sometimes no.
> But one can always choose to define a type appropriate to the problem at hand.
> "Should" is, by definition, correct.  But I doubt that we are in agreement as to
> what "the way DP stuff should be done" means.  I see this as very context dependent.

Possibly. I'm quite convinced that a DP person would have no problem
understanding what I meant.

> > 3. When implementing Ada support for the database one makes sure that
> > one includes the proper date/time stuff into the support library.
> 
> If one is using a preexisting private library, then this is correct.  But different
> applications have very different needs.  Sometimes the most important thing is that
> they be cheap, portable, and small.  Basic ISAM will let one handle many things with
> a lot less weight than a full RDBMS.  And a stand-alone executable file is sometimes
> what one really wants.

Basic ISAM will go wrong in a lot more ways and more times than your
ordinary commercial grade database. In this context mysql and its like
are not a commercial grade database. Postgresql is.


Greetings,