Revisiting the database

[Clark Jones]

Gary Bickford wrote:
[...]
> The following may seem cranky, but it isn't. :O)

OK, so I trust you won't mind me going into "psuedo-curmudgeon" mode!  :-)

[...]
> So please take this as an attempt to be
> constructive :O)

Likewise, I'm sure!  :-)


> To my
> knowledge,  _all_ enterprise level accounting systems built on database
> management systems.

If you'll ammend that statement to read "all commercially available
enterprise level accounting systems", I might be willing to let you get
away with it.  However, I very strongly suspect that there are a lot of
"legacy" systems in large (older) enterprises that are _NOT_ built on a
DBMS (though you might make an argument that they are de-facto DBMS's
themselves, but as a compiler guy, I've made the argument that most [all?]
editors are actually "de-facto real-time interpreters"...)

[...]
> As for performance, nowadays a majority of users are running 400 MHz or
> better machines.

AHEM (clearing the throat loudly)... I beg to differ.  This is coming to
you through the auspices of a 233 MHz MMX, which was only upgraded from
200 MHz due to an incorrectly suspected CPU problem.  (Turned out to be
a bad SIMM.)  One of the big "claims to fame" of Linux is that it WILL
run on hardware that M$ victims consider to be "obsolete".  (I love to
point out that W98 won't let you upgrade to FAT-32 on less than a 90MHz
Pentium, but Linux is happy to do it on a 386 -- suggesting that Linux
can deal with W98's "native" disk structure than W98 can!  :-)  I'll
admit that at this point we probably don't need to put a _LOT_ of worry
into support for 386, but we still need to give consideration to slow
Pentiums...  (Although this is off the topic of gnucash, I will mention
that when I get around to it I have a 486 machine that I intend to use
as a "firewall" and run Linux on it.)

I should also point out that there are a lot of users outside the U.S.
(and other "industrialized" countries) where a lot of older computers
are still in use.  Linux is nice for these folks because they can at
least upgrade the software, even if they have hardware that in Japan
would be relegated to either the museum or the trash can.

						Clark

-- 
Disclaimer:  The opinions expressed herein are mine and not necessarily
those of anyone else.  (As if anyone else would want them!)

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