[Lazarus] Embedded database for Lazarus/Linux

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

On 18/06/2010, Henry Vermaak  wrote:
>>
>> And amazingly everybody managed just fine for 15+ years (in the OS/2,
>> DOS, Win3.11 era) before RDBMS became popular on desktop systems.  If
>
> The first rdbms was released in 1968.  Even dbase is now 30 years old.

Please re-read my original message (quoted for your convenience). I
know when RDBMS were developed, but I clearly stated "became popular
on desktop systems" meaning: used by desktop applications. Not
everybody has a Mainframe at home - now or back in the 80's.
Mainframes being the original systems that ran RDBMS.

Desktop systems ran perfectly with binary files as storage for many
years. Pascal was at its high point and very popular for reading such
files. I remember back in the days of Fidonet, when message forums
were flooded with *.pas files containing structure information text
file documentation for reading various binary storage files. Binary
files were very easy to use, and upgraded to newer formats just as
easily as your current application having to update the table
structure in a database (normally done at application startup or via
an upgrade tool).

But please note, my argument here is not against using a database for
data storage (I actually don't know how this thread got twisted to
that topic). Embedded systems have there place, but as soon as you
have multiple clients or users accessing a database file, I think it
more appropriate for a full RDBMS installation. Firebird being one of
the top choices simply because it is the easiest full RDBMS to deploy
- a mere 10MB install and no admin knowledge or maintenance required
afterwards - unlike MySQL, MS-SQL-Server, DB2, Oracle, PostgreSQL etc.

As for the debate about which format to use for simple application
settings. INI being the obvious choice and de facto standard for years
on multiple systems. Why anybody would want to use XML or a SQL
database table for that just boggles the mind. And I fully agree with
the other poster about Firefox and its Bookmarks change. I also wanted
to restore my bookmarks.html file the other day on a newly installed
system, but now Firefox uses SQLite for such simple storage, so the
solution wasn't immediately obvious. It was dead simple a few versions
back - simply copy the old bookmarks.html file over the new one. Now
Firefox fell for the classic over-engineering mistake, and they had to
extend their UI to include a Import function so you can import from a
backup file, or from a selected HTML file or from a SQLite database -
a lot more complex than it used to be.


Anyway, I replied to the original poster of this thread relating to an
embedded database option for Lazarus, so I consider this thread
closed. The original poster can now experiment with Firebird or SQLite
and choose one based on his current and future needs and requirements.

-- 
Regards,
  - Graeme -


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