SQL and other databases

[Bob Sneidar]

Hypercard began to slow down tremendously once you got past 1000 cards. People began to experience index corruption not long after that. Stacks could become unreadable and unrepairable. 

The promise of SQL as I recall was to be able to have a <somewhat> standard query language that worked with foreign databases. You didn't have to know or care about the engine on the other side. As long as it as SQL, you could query it. 

Real life is as always a bit different. Everyone loves standards, so long as they can dictate what the standards are. I have encountered a number of differences in different engines relating to syntax, when to use regular quotes, when to use sequel quotes, what column types can or cannot be enumerated, etc. 

Also, SQL was supposed to be able to host huge, almost unlimited databases, and have the capability of handling a vast number of connections. This was seen as an essential step in the *evolution* of databases, because people envisioned the whole world being tied together and people being able to find out just about anything about anything by sitting down at their computer and searching for it. Laughable huh? ;-)

Bob


On Mar 20, 2011, at 12:57 PM, Richmond wrote:

> Maybe I'm a bit naive when it comes to databases,
> but I have all the children and their parents and so on, in
> a database that consists of a Livecode stack and nothing
> else.
> 
> But then, in 1989 I had all the kids at Madrasa Emirat al-Khasa
> school, Al Ain, UAE in a database written and run on my BBC Master
> and stored on a single 800 kb floppy disc; so anything after that
> has got to seem better.
> 
> So, I am really interested to know why so many folk seem interested in using
> Livecode to write database front-ends rather than using Livecode for the
> database as such.
> 
> One of Bill Atkinson's initial premises was to make Hypercard non-linear, so
> setting up a relational database should be 'pips'.
> 
> sincerely, Richmond.
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