Re: The joy of SQL

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.

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.

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.