From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,cfd23c10fd537a80 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public From: "Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen" Subject: Re: Ada Calendar oddity Date: 2000/05/12 Message-ID: <391C8311.4F6DC55C@online.no>#1/1 X-Deja-AN: 622735563 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit References: <39176D85.603D7AEC@research.canon.com.au> <39178DEA.FD2C20FA@research.canon.com.au> <8f92o1$6v$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3918BB77.693C70D6@research.canon.com.au> <8fahfv$mgt$1@nnrp1.deja.com> <3919CC94.538DDBA0@online.no> <391ADECC.BCE77DDA@earthlink.net> <391B1D0E.B49DB714@online.no> <391C24CA.D9497E80@earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Complaints-To: news-abuse@online.no X-Trace: news1.online.no 958169873 130.67.235.103 (Sat, 13 May 2000 00:17:53 MET DST) Organization: Jensen programvareutvikling MIME-Version: 1.0 NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 13 May 2000 00:17:53 MET DST Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Date: 2000-05-12T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: 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,