data structures versus data bases???

[husam]

Paul Boddie wrote:

> husam <h.jehadalwan at student.kun.nl> wrote in message news:<3BF1163C.9000502 at student.kun.nl>...
> 
>>ok, now it's clear.
>>thank you all for your contributions.
>>
> 
> But we wanted the half hour argument! ;-)
> 
> I'd distinguish between databases and data structures as follows:
> 
> A database is a collection of information stored in a structured
> fashion, possibly along with a description of how elements of that
> information are related to each other (although that description is
> really the database meta-data). An example of a database would be
> "software packages registered at The Vaults of Parnassus".
> 
> A data structure is a mechanism for storing information. It dictates
> the interface which lets you add, search for, investigate or remove
> items of information from the structure. Examples of a data structure
> are dictionaries, lists, stacks, trees and so on.
> 
> One might start to argue whether or not a relational database
> management system (RDBMS) such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, etc. is an
> implementation of a data structure. Therefore, one could add the
> following definition:
> 
> A database (management) system is a system which implements data
> structures to store information, typically restricting access to those
> data structures by providing an abstract interface to the information.
> 
> Therefore, one could regard a database system as being something which
> potentially implements a number of data structures (in the case of an
> RDBMS, we could consider a "table" as a data structure) with each of
> these potentially incorporating other data structures (for an RDBMS
> table, this might well involve various kinds of tree data structures).
> 
> Of course, this is a vague discussion of the nomenclature, and out
> there on the Internet, there's probably somewhere which lists the
> "official" definitions from the "gods of Computer Science and database
> theory".
> 
> Paul
> 



ok, lets start talk about which system is faster?
imaging that we have 1000000 books. We want to make an interface that 
allow the user to add a book, its location in the library, author, 
publishing agent and year of publishing. Imagin that we make to 
programs, one that stores these informations in a data base system, 
while the other stores the information in simple dictionary. When two 
users search for the same query in these programs, which program will 
retrieve the information faster?