Is this SQL databases or No-SQL? [LWN.net]

Is this SQL databases or No-SQL?

Posted Mar 26, 2014 10:25 UTC (Wed) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Is this SQL databases or No-SQL? by Wol
Parent article: A discussion between database and kernel developers

Thank you! This is what I wanted - and the first of your two links is actually helpful as well (it describes a problem domain that's challenging in RDBMS tools, but easy in LDAP and Pick).

So, summarizing for me; the benefit of Pick is that it provides an LDAP-like database (different normalization to Codd's normal forms) but with a flexible schema and a better query language that's based around objects.

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Is this SQL databases or No-SQL?

Posted Mar 26, 2014 14:39 UTC (Wed) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

If you say so :-)

I don't think that was the intention, but yes, it works.

As I see it, Pick was designed by engineers, Relational by mathematicians. And you may well have noticed that I praise relational theory, but damn relational databases. Because the database imposes requirements (C&D's 1st rule, primarily) that were done simply to make the problems solvable. And cripple the DBMS in the process.

Pick being far more flexible, can take advantage of all the advances in theory, without being tied down by the maths.

If you do play with Pick, though, BE CAREFUL! It's the C of the database world - it gives you plenty of rope and will happily let you hang yourself with it. Do an EAR analysis, and then as I said declare each object type as a FILE (or "table") and store the object view in it. But Pick will happily let you split it across several files should there be sound engineering reasons ... :-)

Cheers,
Wol