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why the future is so written in stone as being "relational databases."
Because the relational model is the only real data model in existence, giving us the power and performance we need by being simple, expressive, and by separating the logical from the physical level.
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BeFS has all of the capability that a relational database has in a hierarchical arrangement with POSIX properties.
That is part the problem. More powerful views of files should be possible.
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It is a discussion of how one man implented a file system
Without taking in account 30 years of research and development of the relational model.
I can understand it may sound strange, but it has been that long since hierarchies became obsolete as a way of organising -- not necessarily of presenting -- data.
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the relational model is a great way to organize your data. You want to know how x relates to y in your data set
No, that's a relationship, not a relation. The relational model isn't about relationships (which aren't even stored), but relations.
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A file system is a way to store and retrieve arbitrary, heterogenous data, with loose or no relationship.
You are pressuposing file systems are hierarchical. OK, the relational model allows one to store a hierarchy at a more efficient and powerful way.
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The true essence of the relational model is just that - the ability to talk about complex interactions and tight linkages between data
Not at all, the relational model simplifies all this complexity. It all becomes simple relations, without relationships.
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is not a reason to build all that ridiculous overhead/i>
You are thinking SQL, not relational. Relational is simple and implies little overhead.
First, OS research is stagnated. It tends to focus on low-level stuff like distribution or microkernels, or GUI stuff like Sun's. Anything else just doesn't happen, because it is considered that the POSIX model can't be overthrown, be it in its implementations like the GNU system or in its corruptions like MS Windows.
That said, there is the GNU Hurd. I have a suspicion it is meant by Stallman to be a stepping stone from POSIX to a rosy Lisp future. I hope it, or something the like, can be used as a stepping stone to a bright relational future. Perhaps Gnome Storage or something the like could be a proof of concept to something even better.
Second, there is currently too much data mistification. OO, XML, SQL... and too few people who really understand data. Worse, these few people tend to work with IBM mainframes or MS Windows. I doubt there are more than half a dozen hackers who do grok the relational model, and thus we have Opus and Duro, but they are not ambitious enough -- yet, I hope.
Third, while current relational free software projects are simple data access libraries, there are at least two full RDBMSs in development -- Dataphor and Alfredo Novoa's. But none is done yet, both are MS.Net, and none is free.
Know you are joking, but for the benefit of others:
A DB isn't fast, it is just stored at a DBMS. Now a RDBMS can be faster than anything else, because of data independence, that is, the separation of the logical and physical levels of any given database.
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a POS implimentation
What does that mean? OneLook gave me so many meanings, I gave up.
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what would the user experiance on a system built on a database file system be like
Anything you'd like. Hierarchies can be quite nicely stored in a RDBMS, so one does not need to change much in the user level.
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would the actual file contents be stored off in another table
It would be stored in a relation. RDBs don't have tables.
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BeFS was renowned for its database-like properties
That's not what we need. What we need is a full relational database as the core of the OS, with a relational-enabled language as the primary systems programming language.
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its metadata indexing capabilities (which are the beginnings of a relational model)
No, they could be the beginnings of an implementation of the relational model.
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the BeOS designers agree with you
If they did they would have gone full ahead instead of taking half measures.
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It's also interesting that the author spends quite a while discussing how difficult it is to do well (particularly performance-wise) and how they almost left it out (IIRC) and/or had to limit its scope.
No one ever said data was easy. But implementors usually do this particular blunder because they never understood the relational model, confounding it with SQL.
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I'll believe people who have actually tried to implement the technology in question over people who say others should do so
No, I am not talking about their technology. I am talking about the relational model.
Only if inertia and ignorance continue to hinder us.
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here are some performance issues
No, this is a physical issue. The relational says nothing about the physical level, thus leaving the implementor total freedom to achieve the best performance possible. This is typically better than what is possible navigationally.
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even if the relational database uses a raw partition it is still use some sort of filesystem
Not at all. What makes you think so?
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how do you know ti will be a realtional database? Maybe it will be an OO database.
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I think sad that de Icaza is happy about Sun not including Mono or Evolution.
On one hand competition is good and it may happen that it helps further adoption of free software, improvements in both Evolution and Glow and all that. And we hope both remain standards-based and interoperable.
But at this point, we aren't strong enough to compete much, we already have too much duplication of efforts like in the whole KDE vs Gnome mess, and the BSDs vs GNU/Linux vs Hurd one.
Worse yet, he is happy that Sun users get less goodies! This is simply Not Good. Whatever Sun motives may be, this is not a good thing in itself. It would be much better to work with Sun to address its concerns, but then de Icaza already proved he would rather follow his own path, like he already dissociated himself from copyleft and the FSF because he didn't like the focus on ideas over pragmatism.
And perhaps that's nice about Sun doing their own stuff: it's copylefted and they have copyright assignment. Not only Glow may prove a safer choice (legally speaking) than Evolution both to users and developers (if Sun ever frees Java, or makes it run good on free JVM implementations), but Sun is getting used to free software and copyleft. Free Solaris and Java anyone?
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there needs to be an easier way to install non-packaged stuff
Perhaps. But perhaps it is better as it is. Non-packaged stuff just needs to be packaged; if it hasn't yet it is probably not yet mature enough for lay users.
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Anyone who is proficient in science or math is not going to waste their time teaching
And why not? Because parents don't care enough to pay good schools either with their own money in private schools or by voting accordingly in the case of public ones. Instead they buy big homes, big cars, expensive vacations, expensive gizmos and vote themselves public welfare either for self-profit or to appease their consciences. So that's the real cause for bad educators quality.
Ah, also mothers work, so they can't really help with education; and WASP families have few children, so much of the youngsters come from less structured families or immigrants.
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I like the fact that some at least some are made in Europe
By implication, you don't mind that wealth is concentrated in Europe, Anglo-Saxon America, Oceania and the Far East as opposed to Latin America, African and almost all of Asia?
...by some ten years... Sun has being considering that for several years, there was even a paper by one of the Sun founders or Solaris developers from around 93 or 94. The proposal has been around, and consistently rejected, since that time.
What a lost opportunity... had they done that then, Solaris would have perhaps a similar if not better position than GNU/Linux today, provided they had good stewardship.
So is that hard or not? Are there good tutorials or not? There's LyX for documents, but is there any WYSIWYM tools for stylesheets?
I shiver to think of when I tried to create a CSS2 printing stylesheet...
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in Europe that is better.
I'd love to get a CV accepted at Europe, but considering I was booted from Switzerland because of the bilateral agreements between CH and EU, and all the offshoring talk, I don't know if it is a good investment of my time and efforts to try...
Slashdot Mirror
Because the relational model is the only real data model in existence, giving us the power and performance we need by being simple, expressive, and by separating the logical from the physical level.
That is part the problem. More powerful views of files should be possible.
No.
Without taking in account 30 years of research and development of the relational model.
I can understand it may sound strange, but it has been that long since hierarchies became obsolete as a way of organising -- not necessarily of presenting -- data.
No, that's a relationship, not a relation. The relational model isn't about relationships (which aren't even stored), but relations.
You are pressuposing file systems are hierarchical. OK, the relational model allows one to store a hierarchy at a more efficient and powerful way.
Not at all, the relational model simplifies all this complexity. It all becomes simple relations, without relationships.
You are thinking SQL, not relational. Relational is simple and implies little overhead.
Not soon. There are currently several problems:
First, OS research is stagnated. It tends to focus on low-level stuff like distribution or microkernels, or GUI stuff like Sun's. Anything else just doesn't happen, because it is considered that the POSIX model can't be overthrown, be it in its implementations like the GNU system or in its corruptions like MS Windows.
That said, there is the GNU Hurd. I have a suspicion it is meant by Stallman to be a stepping stone from POSIX to a rosy Lisp future. I hope it, or something the like, can be used as a stepping stone to a bright relational future. Perhaps Gnome Storage or something the like could be a proof of concept to something even better.
Second, there is currently too much data mistification. OO, XML, SQL... and too few people who really understand data. Worse, these few people tend to work with IBM mainframes or MS Windows. I doubt there are more than half a dozen hackers who do grok the relational model, and thus we have Opus and Duro, but they are not ambitious enough -- yet, I hope.
Third, while current relational free software projects are simple data access libraries, there are at least two full RDBMSs in development -- Dataphor and Alfredo Novoa's. But none is done yet, both are MS.Net, and none is free.
But it is not hopeless yet.
A DBMS can have an API like anything else, no need for shells.
Know you are joking, but for the benefit of others:
A DB isn't fast, it is just stored at a DBMS. Now a RDBMS can be faster than anything else, because of data independence, that is, the separation of the logical and physical levels of any given database.
What does that mean? OneLook gave me so many meanings, I gave up.
Anything you'd like. Hierarchies can be quite nicely stored in a RDBMS, so one does not need to change much in the user level.
Ergo, it was not relational.
Am not.
That's not what we need. What we need is a full relational database as the core of the OS, with a relational-enabled language as the primary systems programming language.
Not quite... they were more doing something SQL-like.
No, they could be the beginnings of an implementation of the relational model.
If they did they would have gone full ahead instead of taking half measures.
No one ever said data was easy. But implementors usually do this particular blunder because they never understood the relational model, confounding it with SQL.
No, I am not talking about their technology. I am talking about the relational model.
Only if inertia and ignorance continue to hinder us.
No, this is a physical issue. The relational says nothing about the physical level, thus leaving the implementor total freedom to achieve the best performance possible. This is typically better than what is possible navigationally.
Not at all. What makes you think so?
OO has already been laughed off the contest.
One more backwards-looking text... it simply ignores that the future is relational databases as a filesystem.
I don't find SETI so much better... seems to be a wishful thinking scheme.
No, I also miss being able to edit out attachments and HTML parts, and to correct wrong email dates.
On one hand competition is good and it may happen that it helps further adoption of free software, improvements in both Evolution and Glow and all that. And we hope both remain standards-based and interoperable.
But at this point, we aren't strong enough to compete much, we already have too much duplication of efforts like in the whole KDE vs Gnome mess, and the BSDs vs GNU/Linux vs Hurd one.
Worse yet, he is happy that Sun users get less goodies! This is simply Not Good. Whatever Sun motives may be, this is not a good thing in itself. It would be much better to work with Sun to address its concerns, but then de Icaza already proved he would rather follow his own path, like he already dissociated himself from copyleft and the FSF because he didn't like the focus on ideas over pragmatism.
And perhaps that's nice about Sun doing their own stuff: it's copylefted and they have copyright assignment. Not only Glow may prove a safer choice (legally speaking) than Evolution both to users and developers (if Sun ever frees Java, or makes it run good on free JVM implementations), but Sun is getting used to free software and copyleft. Free Solaris and Java anyone?
Perhaps. But perhaps it is better as it is. Non-packaged stuff just needs to be packaged; if it hasn't yet it is probably not yet mature enough for lay users.
People working in sweatshops would either starve or become criminals otherwise. At least they'd get even worse jobs.
Please stop misinformation!
And why not? Because parents don't care enough to pay good schools either with their own money in private schools or by voting accordingly in the case of public ones. Instead they buy big homes, big cars, expensive vacations, expensive gizmos and vote themselves public welfare either for self-profit or to appease their consciences. So that's the real cause for bad educators quality.
Ah, also mothers work, so they can't really help with education; and WASP families have few children, so much of the youngsters come from less structured families or immigrants.
By implication, you don't mind that wealth is concentrated in Europe, Anglo-Saxon America, Oceania and the Far East as opposed to Latin America, African and almost all of Asia?
Fellow travellers continue making the rounds...
Hopefully not. Hopefully computer systems embedded in autos will keep as unobstrusive as they've been since introduced, some twenty years ago...
...by some ten years... Sun has being considering that for several years, there was even a paper by one of the Sun founders or Solaris developers from around 93 or 94. The proposal has been around, and consistently rejected, since that time.
What a lost opportunity... had they done that then, Solaris would have perhaps a similar if not better position than GNU/Linux today, provided they had good stewardship.
So is that hard or not? Are there good tutorials or not? There's LyX for documents, but is there any WYSIWYM tools for stylesheets?
I shiver to think of when I tried to create a CSS2 printing stylesheet...
I'd love to get a CV accepted at Europe, but considering I was booted from Switzerland because of the bilateral agreements between CH and EU, and all the offshoring talk, I don't know if it is a good investment of my time and efforts to try...
Paradox ain't relational, merely SQL.
I can believe it -- I just never found out how to reproduce, say, my complex OpenOffice.org CV in LaTeX. Tutorials anyone?
Synaptic.
GNUCash is not anymore the only game in town. There are simpler, less capable alternatives.
This is a toughie, for on one hand it is a critical mass issue, on the other a freedom one.