Greg Smith wrote:
> the idea of one database approach always being right
> just isn't true anyway.
Or one software development approach or one application runtime approach
or ... . One of the major contributions of the relational model
compared to the myriad network model implementations prevalent at the
time was that the relation model was a straightforward approach whose
theory was easily grasped and applied. The model made *people* more
productive; certainly, network implementations could run circles around
the early relational implementations, so it didn't make database servers
more productive.
Any alternative DBMS approach would have to provide a similar level of
human productivity. Given relational's staying power over the
intervening 25+ years (with many more people available to research
alternatives and much more available computing power), that appears to
be a significant challenge.
--
Guy Rouillier