[Taxacom] Wikispecies is not a database: part 3 (after thinkingabout it!)

[Mike Sadka]

I have to agree with Tony - cautiously though.

Yes, as Rod rightly points out, the relational database is just one
flavour of database - and yes it does have its problems and there are
other models emerging - which may ultimately prove as good or better (or
not).

But the relational database model is arguably the only database model
tohave really stood any test of time, having been used for decades now,
and is a technology validated and supported by huge research, both
academic and industrial.  It is by far the world's dominant database
paradigm - and still the database model of consensus for the IT
industry.

A few years ago everybody was predicting the rise of object oriented
databases and assuming they would be the next db paradigm, but that
simply hasn't happened.

I would never advise being blind to new developments (of which I
admittedly know little) - but I would advise against being over-eager to
discard very well tried and tested technologies until one is sure that
the replacements really will do the job - and it is important to
remember all the manifold benefits of the relational model when making
this assessment.

Mike



-----Original Message-----
From: Tony.Rees at csiro.au [mailto:Tony.Rees at csiro.au] 
Sent: 14 August 2009 06:40
To: r.page at bio.gla.ac.uk
Cc: Mike Sadka; taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] Wikispecies is not a database: part 3 (after
thinkingabout it!)

Rod Page wrote...

<snip>

1. The notion of a database espoused by Tony and Mike (i.e.,  
relational databases with tables with columns and rows) is but one  
view of databases, and a view some might say is old fashioned (key- 
value databases are the new hotness, there is a generation of  
programmers emerging for whom relational databases seem as relevant as  
FORTRAN).

</snip>

Maybe ... but tell me this: is there a single major database-driven
biodiversity informatics provider that is NOT using a "conventional"
relational database? My suspicion is that you are talking [b]leading
edge here (if not vapourware) in the present context...

Just my 2 cents...

Tony