I understand your desire for a "black box". The problem arises when your black box is upgraded. I've come across anecdotes of eg Oracle upgrades, where new software has resulted in a markedly slower system, because Oracle changed their data storage, or indexing, or something, and all the app's assumptions suddenly became wrong.
That, basically, is the problem with the "black box" approach. And the relational model says you're not allowed to do it any other way. "You're not allowed to look behind the curtain". In other words, you're not allowed to empirically test the WHOLE system (ie inside the black box). At least with MV, while we may not care to look behind the curtain, we are welcome to do so, and to prove that we have the fastest possible implementation. As a scientist by training I *DO* *NOT* like being told "look, just use it, it works. You don't need to understand it." All too often I end up getting badly bitten when that happens... Cheers, Wol -----Original Message----- From: Geoffrey Mitchell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 17 July 2007 15:58 To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: Re: [U2] UniData 7.1 vs. MS SQL 2005 performance I don't have any idea what you are trying to say. A database should be a black box. You put data in and pull data out. The less you have to know about the details of what goes on inside, the better. You can easily benchmark two black box systems that perform the same function (with unknown implementations), and the results are totally relevant as a comparison of those two systems. Anthony Youngman wrote: >Because the results are not (scientifically) reproducible. (Well, they >are for that one implementation...) > >Because data storage is part of the Pick data model, we can be confident >that benchmark results are valid across all (similar?) implementations. >Because relational forbids knowing anything about the implementation, >any benchmark is valid for that one configuration only. > > -- Geoffrey Mitchell Programmer/Analyst Home Decorator's Collection 314-684-1062 ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
