XML size (was: no subject)

[Paul Lussier]

In a message dated: Wed, 03 Apr 2002 12:49:00 CST
Rob Browning said:

>That makes me feel even more strongly that we'd be better off with SQL
>and a well specified API for accessing the tables -- if you have
>something like an SQL server between the apps and the data, it's a
>heck of a lot easier to make sure they don't clobber each other.
>
>> Don't databases keep transaction logs and backup files?  What happens 
>> when the system crashes because of a power outage in the middle of 
>> of a transaction?  Now you've got a corrupt binary file that contains 
>> all your data and it's essentially useless.
>
>A good DB makes sure this *never* happens.  If this happens with
>postgres running on reiserfs, I suspect it would be considered an
>important bug, though I don't know for sure how far along they are on
>this front ATM.

Right, but now you've locked yourself into a DB server which needs to 
run on the system, and you're no longer talking about something small 
and embedded like Berkeley-DB.  This may improve performance of the 
application, but at the sacrifice of overall system performance of 
now having to run something like MySQL or PostgreSQL.  Additionally, 
you're also back to requiring the average home user to install and 
maintain a dbms, something they most likely have no knowledge of or
any desire to have knowledge of.

>>>        e) reduce the amount of core RAM required by the application
>>>        f) have all the code necessary to move to SQL server
>>
>> So you're reducing the size of the application by adding code?
>
>Well, if you use SQL, you don't have to write your own indexing and
>query system, from scratch, for example, you get hopefully really good
>transactions, locking, B-tree indexes, save/restore, and query
>infrastructure for free.  That *definitely* makes some things easier.

I'll buy that, but as I said, in order to get this, you've increased 
overall complexity of the entire system for the small gain in 
performance of one application which probably isn't even running all 
the time.

I still maintain that for the average home user, the flat ascii text 
file is the best bet.
-- 

Seeya,
Paul