4 ms·

That Linus Torvald quote comes to mind: “Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.”

tabtab 8y ago
This is why I believe the future of source code management will be via relational databases instead of in hierarchical file systems. Large projects are too involved for trees. The same with GUI specifications: They are too complex to manage with OOP/OOM. Plus, a GUI spec in a database is (mostly) language-neutral so that you are not tied to a GUI library written in a specific programming language. You learn one engine, and then use it for PHP, C#, Java, Python, etc.
- zzzcpan 8y ago
  Data structures have nothing to do with SQL though. That quote is pretty much anti-relational databases.
  - tabtab 8y ago
    Please elaborate. Non-trivial data structured will either need a database, or end up resembling one anyhow when you add features they'll eventually need as they mature (concurrency, data integrity, querying, adding indexes without changing functionality/design, backups, etc.) Note that didn't imply that Linux should designed around a DB. However, with virtualization, the idea of an "OS" may change or vanish. The view is toward "applications", with the associations between applications, users, file systems, and machinery more flexible. In that approach, a DB-centric view may make more sense. A (traditional) "OS" is a machine-centric view.
    - zzzcpan 8y ago
      Data-structures are machine-centric, not abstract relational algebra. You can understand why it's important to think about data structures for the machine. Which is a completely opposite view from relational databases, where you are supposed to not think of how data relates to the machine at all.
      - tabtab 8y ago
        In practice the boundary between both is fuzzy. Processing DB data can and is often done in a row-by-row or cell-by-cell basis. Not all computations are convenient to reduce to relational algebra, at least for most practitioners. We can't all be Sheldons.
kwhitefoot 8y ago
Data structures have been the thing to think about since the dawn of computing.

tabtab 8y ago

This is why I believe the future of source code management will be via relational databases instead of in hierarchical file systems. Large projects are too involved for trees. The same with GUI specifications: They are too complex to manage with OOP/OOM. Plus, a GUI spec in a database is (mostly) language-neutral so that you are not tied to a GUI library written in a specific programming language. You learn one engine, and then use it for PHP, C#, Java, Python, etc.

zzzcpan 8y ago
Data structures have nothing to do with SQL though. That quote is pretty much anti-relational databases.
- tabtab 8y ago
  Please elaborate. Non-trivial data structured will either need a database, or end up resembling one anyhow when you add features they'll eventually need as they mature (concurrency, data integrity, querying, adding indexes without changing functionality/design, backups, etc.) Note that didn't imply that Linux should designed around a DB. However, with virtualization, the idea of an "OS" may change or vanish. The view is toward "applications", with the associations between applications, users, file systems, and machinery more flexible. In that approach, a DB-centric view may make more sense. A (traditional) "OS" is a machine-centric view.
  - zzzcpan 8y ago
    Data-structures are machine-centric, not abstract relational algebra. You can understand why it's important to think about data structures for the machine. Which is a completely opposite view from relational databases, where you are supposed to not think of how data relates to the machine at all.
    - tabtab 8y ago
      In practice the boundary between both is fuzzy. Processing DB data can and is often done in a row-by-row or cell-by-cell basis. Not all computations are convenient to reduce to relational algebra, at least for most practitioners. We can't all be Sheldons.

kwhitefoot 8y ago

Data structures have been the thing to think about since the dawn of computing.