Array of dict or lists or ....?

[Ben Finney]

George Sakkis <george.sakkis at gmail.com> writes:

> On Oct 7, 10:15 pm, Pat <P... at junk.net> wrote:
> > I don't understand why I need a database when it should just be a
> > matter of defining the data structure.
> 
> Picking an appropriate data structure depends on the kind of
> functionality you want to provide.
[…]
> The more general information you might want to get from the data,
> the more obvious it becomes that you need a real database.

Thanks very much for posting this answer; I tried to do something
similar but couldn't get at the essential points the way you did here.

Perhaps the original poster is confusing “you should use a database”
with “you should use a database stored in a fully-concurrent
dedicated database management system”.

Far from it: with Python 2.5 you have SQLite (in the ‘sqlite3’
module), which would be ideal for implementing a powerful relational
SQL database used directly by one program instance, without needing a
full-blown database management system in a separately-administrated
server application.

-- 
 \      “Patience, n. A minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue.” |
  `\                   —Ambrose Bierce, _The Devil's Dictionary_, 1906 |
_o__)                                                                  |
Ben Finney