All this talk about DataBases

[Scott Kane]

From: "Rob Cozens" <rcozens at pon.net>

Hi Rob,

> I've followed this thread this far wondering "should I bother to mention 
> SDB, considering the underwhelming response it has received from the 
> RunRun community?"

No disrespect meant by my reference to Serendipity.

> Scott & Andre might offer some insight in this regard, as both have at 
> least looked at SDB.  I've had eConversations with others who said they 
> would look at SDB; but no followup questions, suggestions, or complaints. 
> So I don't know if folks found it unsuitable or incomprehensible (Paul L., 
> Our issues were different: you wanted SDB to work like EpsiTalk, which it 
> could not do due to the issue Scott noted above--the entire database stack 
> _is_ loaded in RAM & must be updated when one record changes.)

This wasn't necessarily a problem for me.

> If a "real" database must by definition only partially load to RAM, then 
> SDB is not a "real" db.  OTOH, SDB supports multiuser client/server access 
> with both automatic & programatic record locking  and multiple record 
> search & retrieval via binary searches of indexed records in a Revolution 
> db stack.   But compared to a "real" database, once the db stack is 
> opened, 0 disk accesses are required to retrieve any record.   And note 
> that in a client/server setup, only the server app sees the entire db 
> stack, while the client front end stacks deal with data on a 
> record-by-record basis.  Also since SDB is 100% native Transcript, it is 
> 100% cross platform compatible and requires no externals.  I'll cut my 
> promo short and note SDB is open source and free of royalty charges.

Serendipity is indeed very clever.  I was very much impressed.  My only 
issue at that time was the implementation at a stage when Rev and all things 
transcript were totally new to me.

> For some time Andre Garzia graciously provided download access to 
> Serendipity Library (which includes SDB) at wecode.org.  Andre and I have 
> had some discussions about reinstating the download site once I was ready 
> to release SDB II (which supports binary data  in addition to text); but 
> lacking any expression of interest from the RunRev community and faced 
> with emerging issues (CA Marine Life Protection Act implementation, wave 
> energy generation, and marine aquaculture) in my other area of focus, SDB 
> II testing isn't high on my list.

Understandable.

> As always, the source code, utilities, and example db stacks are 
> available, and I'd certainly have more interest in working on it if 
> someone else found it useful.

You've encouraged me to take a fresh look at it.  I've got it backed up and 
will have a play....  :-)

Scott Kane
CD Too - Voice Overs Artist  & Original Game and Royalty Free Multi-Media 
Music
"In painting a tiger you can paint the skin, but not the bones."  Confucius