Re: GNAT GPL is not shareware

["Randy Brukardt" <randy@rrsoftware.com>]

"G.B." <bauhaus@futureapps.invalid> wrote in message 
news:m8m3ge$sg3$1@dont-email.me...
...
> It is: "reinventing wheels", as I said.

In most cases, I'd rather reinvent a wheel rather than depend on someone 
else's wheel of indeterminate quality which will change at unpredicable 
intervals. The only time reuse (of any kind) makes sense is when it will 
save a lot of effort for very little cost. (I'm not going to invent an HTML 
browser to show help in my next program, the effort would be much higher 
than the benefit, especially as it is not a critical part of the program.)

Using a DB has a high cost (in getting the interface to work, figuring out 
queries and schemas, etc.) and it adds a level of fragility (because of the 
frequent updates, any one of which could break one's system; additionally, 
someone outside of your code can easily access the data files using the DB 
and make them inconsistent). The benefit would have to be very high, and 
given the simplicity of what it provides, that requires a very specific type 
of application (one for a which a transactional model makes sense).

                                            Randy.