RoR, Judge Judy, and little old ladies

[Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email)]

BLS wrote:
> Hi Andrei,
> 
> Andrei Alexandrescu (See Website For Email) schrieb:
> 
>> Sorry, I'm not sure I understand. My understanding of the mechanism is 
>> the following:
>>
>> 1. The app runs a SQL-to-target-language parser to build an idea about 
>> the database.
>>
>> 2. The database folk changes the database in any number of ways. This 
>> is not a process that automatically notifies the target language 
>> application.
>>
>> 3. The target language application must undergo some change to 
>> accommodate the change in the database.
>>
>> I did DB/financial work in 1998. This scenario was a total bitch 
>> because we didn't have small and fast test cases for all logic code to 
>> run when the database changed. Basically it was the customer 
>> (financial analysts) who let us know when something bombed, and they 
>> actually got so used to it that they even weren't pissed anymore.
>> Andrei
> 
> I understand and I know about the problem. Due to the fact that this is 
> a serious task, which should not be answered (like before) within a 
> simple statement, and the fact that I am not used to think and argue in 
> english, requires that I have to write down my thoughts in german first 
> and to translate them later. This may take a while, I hope you understand.
> 
> Allow me a few WHYs
> WHY a datastore called database has such an influence/impact  on 
> consumer applications, f.i. your Software ? I mean a database should be
> a Black Box ONLY accessable through your application by using a public 
> key in the sense of (PGP)... Your Application should master the database 
> and not vice versa.
> 
> Since about 24 years I am in the database business and I have seen only 
> one implemantation which keeps you away from this kind of trouble, let 
> me quote /
> Suneido has an integrated client-server relational database. The 
> database is accessed via a language which includes administration 
> requests and update operations as well as actual queries. The query 
> language is based on the relational algebra language in An Introduction 
> to Database Systems by C.J.Date.
> /
> 
> D is young and refreshing: So WHY not implementing this kind of DB 
> System in D ?
> 
> Since I know that you are very busy I hesitate to offer you a this link 
>  but I think you will find some very interesting information worth 
> spending a few minutes...
> http://www.suneido.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=1 
> 
> 
> Further. a big step
> I could imagine that it could be a matter of interest to port the new 
> MINIX  kernel into D having a DB system instead of "journaling file 
> system"  (Beside, still wonder why this kind of filesys. is not allready 
> reality) Why not doing  that in D ? This is indeed a  vision and as our 
> old german chanceler "Helmut Schmidt" says : People having visions 
> should see a doctor really quick.

I've seen Tanenbaum talking about Minix. It's a jewel; the kernel is 
only 4000 lines of code, and everything else is modularly implementable 
in user space. Writing Minix's kernel in D would definitely be an 
interesting D project.


Andrei