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99% of web applications will never need relations, so just go the easy route and don't worry about a relational schema for your data.
by psadauskas 16y ago
99% of web applications will never need relations, so just go the easy route and don't worry about a relational schema for your data.
- kingkilr 16y agoUhh, in the context of an RDBMS a "relation" doesn't mean a "relationship" in the sense of a foreign key, it means a relational algebra relation, saying most applications will never need relations is like saying most applications don't use data.
- chopsueyar 16y agoOh Codd!
- psadauskas 16y agoMost applications won't need the features of an RDBMS that MongoDB & friends don't provide, so whatever definition of "relation" I used, its irrelevant. MongoDB provides enough "relational" algebra for 99% of web apps, without the additional "relational" constraints that a RDBMS forces on you.
- artsrc 16y agoTechnically a relation has to have a primary key so all that set theory is valid. A system could be based on bags, like SQL allows, can also have data.
- sigzero 16y agoPlain text files FTW!!! :-)
- dasil003 16y agoActually that's one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard. I'm hard pressed to think of a single application that does not have related sets of data.
- artsrc 16y agoSure the guys language was imprecise, but the SQL implementation of the relational model was imprecise as well, so we call all get it wrong with gay abandon. The funny thing about relational databases they model relationships fairly loosely, mostly understood and expressed by the user, not the system. Object systems have a stronger idea of a one way relationship with a reference anyway. How many systems should care about relationships. All of them can. Here in Australia they want to put everyones health records online, and connect all the hospitals, doctors, drug stores, testing labs, etc. to those records. So far they have spent heaps, $500 million'ish, on a system that does this: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2010/2975642.htm#transcript http://www.abc.net.au/rn/healthreport/stories/2010/2975642.h... I think this is a good place for something like a non-relational database. You just create a sequential list of events for a person and you are done. You can use something like CouchDB. If you loose your network, you can have a local replica at your local hospital and doctors office. Everything re-syncs later. I think the whole thing is in analysis paralysis because they are trying to systematize the health universe so the meaning of all data is unambiguous. While that sounds grand it will take forever. I blame the whole failure on a drive to systematize data, which SQL databases foster. If you just view health records as a bunch of bits of paper, and just say we want to store them in one place, in a way that is vaguely sequential, the problem is much simpler. CouchDB is after all web scale, shard friendly, and there is no impotence mismatch. After seeing this video I am always going to want to say it that way.
- ergo98 16y ago>I blame the whole failure on a drive to systematize data, which SQL databases foster. If you just view health records as a bunch of bits of paper, and just say we want to store them in one place, in a way that is vaguely sequential, the problem is much simpler. It's simpler, and tremendously less usable.