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Posted by Jerry Stuckle on 09/17/07 20:38
Shelly wrote:
> "Steve" <no.one@example.com> wrote in message
> news:3rwHi.805$3C.788@newsfe05.lga...
>>> Moral: Programming, as well as life, is not always an either-or.
>>> Sometimes a compromise/hybrid is the best solution.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Shelly
>> ahhh, but shelly, the thing i like most is that in programming, it is
>> always either/or: on/off. to say otherwise is to not know programming. the
>> same holds true for life. you either do or do not. any notions about the
>> nobility or superiority of human action in his contemplation of life are
>> simply false, save the fact that there is none of either. do or do not is
>> all that remains and that directly linked to his own survivability - as is
>> the impetous of all animals.
>>
>> compromise. chuckle.
>
> So, I take it that if you fed a meal which is a wonderfully prepared, 10
> pound, filet mignon you either (a) eat all of it or (b) eat none of it?
>
(a). (b) is not even an option!
> or,
>
> If you are faced with a court appearance for excessive speeding in your car
> you should either be acquitted or should get the death sentence?
>
No, but I should either be acquitted or found guilty. And if found
guilty, I should receive the appropriate punishment. The death sentence
is not appropriate for all infractions.
> On one project about 25 years ago I needed to modify a very large
> application that was written in Fortran. I needed dynamic allocation.
> According to you, I should have been faced with two choices. One was to
> emulate dynamic allocation by setting aside a large part of memory and doing
> my own allocation from that memory heap. A second would have been to
> totally rewrite that entire (largggggeeeee) application in C. I chose a
> "compromise". I wrote a small module in C and used that in conjunction with
> the rest of the Fortran code.
>
What is your point?
> The point here is that there are two extremes in handling his situation.
> Either avoid a database and just use the file system, or avoid the file
> system and put all of the contents of the file into a blob field in the
> database. Often, the better way is to use the database as a rapid search
> engine for a file in the file system.
>
Sure, there are extremes. But have you actually tried storing the data
in a blob field and tuning your database for it? I thought not. Access
is quite fast - virtually always faster than a mix of the two, because
you don't have to make both a database and a file system call. Less
overhead - the database returns the blob just as effectively as it does
a file name.
> I guess you aren't married? I have been for over four decades. Believe me,
> "all or nothing" just doesn't work. Even with a swich for the lights you
> can always add a dimmer.
>
Sure it does. If I don't let my wife have her own way ALL the time, I
get "nothing". :-)
> By the way, I have been programming four over forty years. We are not
> talking ones and zeros, true or false, here. We are talking design
> philosophy -- and that if usually a compromise among various alternatives to
> achieve the most efficient results in the shortest time for the least cost.
>
> Shelly
>
>
Sure we are. Everything in programming comes down to ones and zeros.
It's just the approach to getting there that differs.
--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstucklex@attglobal.net
==================
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