[Tutor] table to dictionary and then analysis

[Russel Winder]

On Tue, 2012-05-15 at 19:14 +0100, Alan Gauld wrote:
> On 15/05/12 10:36, Russel Winder wrote:
> > ...queries passed over it then year a database it the
> > right thing -- though I would probably choose a non-SQL database.
> 
> As a matter of interest why?

Because there are alternatives that need to be investigated on a per
problem basis for the best database.

        SQL
        MongoDB
        CouchDB
        Cassandra
        Neo
        
etc. Python only has SQLite3 as standard but there are alternatives. I
have been using PyMongo quite successfully.

> And what kind of alternative would you use?

See above ;-)

> It seems to me that SQL is ideally suited(*) to this type of role. I'm 
> curious what the alternatives might be and why they would be preferred?
> 
> (*)Because: Flexible query language, wide set of tools including GUI 
> query builders, reporting tools etc. Plus easy integration with 
> programming environments, scaleability (less an issue here), 
> security(usually) etc.

It is not clear that the original table works better with the relational
model compared to one of the key-value stores or document stores. It
might. But I no longer always go to SQL for persistence as I used to a
few years ago.

There are various articles around the Web comparing and contrasting
these various models. Some of the articles are even reasonable :-)


-- 
Russel.
=============================================================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: +44 20 7585 2200   voip: sip:russel.winder at ekiga.net
41 Buckmaster Road    m: +44 7770 465 077   xmpp: russel at winder.org.uk
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk  skype: russel_winder
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