Alright.. last one and I'll let you have the last word if you want it..
Julie said:
Can you please explain to me how I've 'tolerated gross inefficiencies'?
Flat-files are the most inefficient and error-prone way to store, search and
sort data. Without structure that is enforced, you can't guarantee the data
integrity. Without data integrity, you completely undermine the usefullness
of your entire System! Without structure that is enforced, you can't rely on
more efficient ways to search and sort.
Databases were invented because they simplified what everyone was doing
manually again and again. After you've written a sorting algorithm enough
times, you think "Damn, I wish I didn't have to keep doing this over and
over". You start "leveraging" technology and reusability.
Imagine there is a "program" that stores data in a structured way, can
enforce the integrity of that data, allows for various ways to increase the
efficiency of searching and can sort very quickly. Sounds great! But it's
"called" a RDBMS.. and now all of a sudden you hate it again??
All I'm saying - is that when someone CHOOSES to stay with a text file, in
that native format, it's bad for several reasons:
-Structure is not enforced
-No guarantee of data integrity
-No efficient, native way of searching
-No efficient, native way of sorting
In other words, this is the most inefficient and useless form of data. You
have to write from scratch, anything you want to do to the data.
When this data is in a database, all of these are taken care of for free.
And when talking about price and managability - I'll take managing a bunch
of databases over managing free-form text files all day long.
The bottom line of this, is that when someone is fired-up about working in
text-files - that spells disaster for me, because you are having a logical
computer rely on data that could very well be inconsistent/illogical, and
you have to write even the most basic utility (like searching). And I call
that gross inefficiency. In fact, you can't GET any more inefficient!!
As near as I can tell, you don't want to believe me that I know what the
requirements are.
I STILL question that you understand the implications of writing a System in
the year 2004 based on raw text files. I can't imagine a computer person
that understands the implications of doing this - and being OK with it..
nay, thinking that it's the BETTER way to do things!! I can't imagine not
leveraging the technologies that are available. This is not the first or
last time someone has needed to search a file - someone has already invented
the wheel for searching, USE IT!!
I *have* looked at a database solution, and the previous implementation *DID*
use secondary hash indexes into the data. This is *exactly* what we are trying
to move away from due to the added complexity, maintenance issues, etc. that
just aren't justified for this component. Meeting the goal of < 10 second
searches w/ a simple/maintainable solution is (in our case!) infinitely more
desirable than sub-second searches at the expense of increased complexity and
maintainability. Honestly, it is that simple, why do you want to make it so
much more complicated?
I consider text-files to be much more complicated, because they typically
need so much care and feeding. A database is pretty trouble-free. I can't
imagine the problems you'd run across to make you resort to going back to
text files! This is not a reasonable argument at all (given the information
that you've given).
Sense of entitlement? I'm baffled by that one. I had a question about a
particular requirement, got a lot more comments about the _requirements_ and
very few responses to the original question.
Because again, *many* people who post, don't understand the implications of
what they are saying. Most people don't post questions about what they
already know about - they post about something they are not as familiar
with. And if they aren't familiar, then they likely don't know of X and Y
shortcuts or easier ways to do what they are doing.
And you do come off as arrogant when you come around asking for comments,
then criticize the people who respond. You come around asking for help and
then criticize the way in which it's provided!
One of the more important things that I've learned about answering questions in
this and other forums is this:
1) don't assume
2) have faith that the op knows what they want (unless they indicate
otherwise)
I completely disagree. Most do not. Newsgroups are used by people during the
development process, not after the project is done and they are presenting a
demo. Many times, nay, MOST times - people just want to accomplish a fixed
task "I want to search through 100MB of data in < 10s".. one would expect
that people are going to say "There isn't anything that you can write or
implement that is going to be quicker and search faster than a database"
3) if the op isn't clear, ask a follow-up question
4) when it is clear what the op is after, specifically answer that question
5) if there are other methods or alternatives available but differ slightly
from the stated requirements, add that as a post script
OK, so after your little lesson, I got an 80% woo hoo!!!
"Take it someplace else"??? Sorry, I wasn't aware that you were the moderator
of this newsgroup.
Just my opinion.
Sorry to hear that. I don't think that you are an idiot, and even if I did, I
wouldn't post it in a public forum.
hahah oh this is different, taking the high road now, eh? Nice.
Well, this has been fun.