Re: The joy of SQL

On 11/4/24 5:09 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sun, 3 Nov 2024 20:36:29 -0500, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
 

On 11/3/24 6:30 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

On Sat, 2 Nov 2024 21:48:47 -0400, 186282@ud0s4.net wrote:
>

MV = Multi-Valued = Data fields that can hold long lists of that KIND
of information. If you have a fleet-tracking DB then there'd be ONE
field saying "mileage" and likely another for "fuel-added" and they'd
just be added-to over time.

>

The record for that vehicle is read all-at-once, rather than there
being dozens, hundreds, of records for said vehicle every time it was
fueled-up.

>
This is why you have joins: so that you can retrieve multiple related
records with a single query. This is the proper relational way of doing
it.

>
Why join when the MV approach keeps yer data in an already-joined
state ???

 Because the MV approach makes that hard to maintain.

   Never noticed that ...
   Everything always in nice structure/order and
   all-together. Nirvana.

Python, and to some extent FORTRAN, have very good string
list-manipulation/reading/writing/insertion/deletion capabilities ...
it'd be fairly easy to set up a MV DB in those languages.

 Python is quite good at SQL database manipulations. This include
setting up complicated joins.

   But why would you want to use SQL ? Insane  :-)

I have some basic tutorials here
<https://gitlab.com/ldo/python_topics_notebooks/-/blob/master/Databases,%20Iterators%20&%20Looping.ipynb?ref_type=heads>
 

The old PICK-ish DB I spent a decade with used pure ASCII-delimited
fields (this was pre-unicode, you could bring 'em up in a text editor
and see all the old IBM-BIOS high-ascii symbols).

 I know, it was crap. Probably scarred you for life, which is why you
think the way you do.

   LOVED those little IBM chars. That they buried them SO
   deep in the unicode codex suggests deliberate bias.
   Anyway, clearly, our religions are never gonna be
   in-sync here.
   You CAN download OpenQM if you want, see how the MV
   approach can be useful. Having used both, and seeing
   flat-file forced down everyone's throats, I'm gonna
   stick with my belief MV has a slight edge and is
   more sane and 'organic'.