Databases and the D Standard Library

[Chris Wright via Digitalmars-d]

On Sat, 31 Dec 2016 19:24:31 -0800, Adam Wilson wrote:
> My idea: Split the data storage systems out by category of data-store.
> For example:
> 	- SQL: std.database.sql (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MSSQL, etc.)

This is doable; SQL is an ANSI and ISO standard, and it strongly 
constrains what you can do with your data.

> 	- Document: std.database.document (Mongo, CouchDB, etc.)
> 	- Key-Value: std.database.keyvalue (Redis, etcd2, etc.)

I'm not so certain about this. CouchDB has a rather different approach to 
things than MongoDB -- possibly not as divergent as Mongo from MySQL, but 
far more than Postgres from MySQL.

Likewise, there are many key/value stores in existence, and they support 
many different operations. For instance, it looks like etcd2 has a notion 
of directories, where you can list items in a directory. Redis just lets 
you list keys with a given prefix. Redis lets you modify values in-place; 
etcd2 doesn't.

We could define a common subset of operations for document databases and 
key/value stores, but most people probably wouldn't be satisfied with it.

There's also a question of where you'd put Cassandra in that, since it's 
decidedly not a SQL database but tries to pretend it is.

> 4. We should hide querying from the developer because they are bad at
> it, security flaws, etc.
> 
> My answer: While agree in principal, especially with the security
> concerns, in reality what you are asking for is an ORM. In my opinion,
> that is a separate concern from a database interface, and is typically
> implemented as layer over the DB interface.

We can encourage people to use prepared queries with documentation and 
naming.