[Chad ThunderCock]

I'm in a course about programming final year and the definition for database is something like tables that have 1 or more relations or something similar, can't remember.


However I see plenty of reasons why there's no need for a table to be connected to any other, tried arguing about it and apparently the teacher simply doesn't accept it while providing no point against it either.



IE: You have a website where you are promoting something, be it videos or whatever and you want, and the user must create an account to watch videos, the videos don't necessarily need a db but the user does.

In this case we'd only have 1 database for the users not connected to any other, isn't it still called a database? (Ofc you can connect it to many other tables if you want to improve the site but it's not a must)



Another example:

You are promoting an ebook or whatever but for people to download they must insert their email, you ONLY want to save their email in a database so you can later on advertise to their emails , once again this only requires a single database with no relations.


So...

[stugz]

I'm in a course about programming final year and the definition for database is something like tables that have 1 or more relations or something similar, can't remember.


However I see plenty of reasons why there's no need for a table to be connected to any other, tried arguing about it and apparently the teacher simply doesn't accept it while providing no point against it either.



IE: You have a website where you are promoting something, be it videos or whatever and you want, and the user must create an account to watch videos, the videos don't necessarily need a db but the user does.

In this case we'd only have 1 database for the users not connected to any other, isn't it still called a database? (Ofc you can connect it to many other tables if you want to improve the site but it's not a must)



Another example:

You are promoting an ebook or whatever but for people to download they must insert their email, you ONLY want to save their email in a database so you can later on advertise to their emails , once again this only requires a single database with no relations.


So...

Neither of your examples needs a database. You can dump those things to a text file. That's why it's not a database. Dumping data in to an RDBMS does not a database make.

In fact, I'd question the sanity of anybody using a full blown RDBMS for your baby examples. You gain nothing and possibly even lose a little bit in performance not that it would matter in such cases.

To sum up he's correct. It isn't a relational database without relations and using an RDBMS without relations is indicative of very limited experience and understanding.

[code42fun]

Neither of your examples needs a database. You can dump those things to a text file. That's why it's not a database. Dumping data in to an RDBMS does not a database make.

In fact, I'd question the sanity of anybody using a full blown RDBMS for your baby examples. You gain nothing and possibly even lose a little bit in performance not that it would matter in such cases.

To sum up he's correct. It isn't a relational database without relations and using an RDBMS without relations is indicative of very limited experience and understanding.

You can absolutely use a Database for a just a single table with no other relations, the advantage you have is SQL and the queries you can generate with it. Also if the table gets really big, you would have a problem with performance and text files without a database.

I would recommend to do it, just for the experience in dealing with SQL.

[stugz]

You can absolutely use a Database for a just a single table with no other relations, the advantage you have is SQL and the queries you can generate with it. Also if the table gets really big, you would have a problem with performance and text files without a database.

I would recommend to do it, just for the experience in dealing with SQL.

You can use it but only a moron would for the examples the OP quoted. The clue is in the name: RELATIONAL Database Management System. As for getting experience with SQL selecting from one table. Really? You would call that experience? That is so trivial as to be worthless. SQL experience is in inner joins, left joins, right joins, subqueries and so on. Most of that would never be used with one table. SQL has next to no advantage in those baby scenarios.

There's no big deal with using a massive file in the examples the OP quoted. You pad the fields out so they are all the same byte length and then whack byte index on the file.

As for your recommendation - would you mind telling us what qualifies you to make that recommendation? I'll give you my credentials - 12 years experience as a DBA in commercial environments where a 100 GB monthly growth is considered a small database.

[code42fun]

You can use it but only a moron would for the examples the OP quoted. The clue is in the name: RELATIONAL Database Management System. As for getting experience with SQL selecting from one table. Really? You would call that experience? That is so trivial as to be worthless. SQL experience is in inner joins, left joins, right joins, subqueries and so on. Most of that would never be used with one table. SQL has next to no advantage in those baby scenarios.

There's no big deal with using a massive file in the examples the OP quoted. You pad the fields out so they are all the same byte length and then whack byte index on the file.

As for your recommendation - would you mind telling us what qualifies you to make that recommendation? I'll give you my credentials - 12 years experience as a DBA in commercial environments where a 100 GB monthly growth is considered a small database.

He didn't ask for suggestions for a specific problem, he gave examples and wanted to know our opinion and I suggested him to try easy things with databases to get practice, since he is in a course, for learning.

And everyone is allowed to give recommendations in a place with freedom of speech, you don't need a PHD to have an opinion. It is up to himself which recommendation he listens to, he has his own brain.

[Corios]

You can use it but only a moron would for the examples the OP quoted. The clue is in the name: RELATIONAL Database Management System. As for getting experience with SQL selecting from one table. Really? You would call that experience? That is so trivial as to be worthless. SQL experience is in inner joins, left joins, right joins, subqueries and so on. Most of that would never be used with one table. SQL has next to no advantage in those baby scenarios.

And the forum dunce posts again. Ever heard of SQLite? It's used widely for that exact reason. Its a massive performance increase over querying on a text file. League of Legends, one of the largest platforms in the world, uses sqlite without any relationship for champions, icons, items, etc.

Glad your experience helps so much! I think you said 12 years experience 2 years ago, your experience is bullshit if its even real.

[stugz]

He didn't ask for suggestions for a specific problem, he gave examples and wanted to know our opinion and I suggested him to try easy things with databases to get practice, since he is in a course, for learning.

And everyone is allowed to give recommendations in a place with freedom of speech, you don't need a PHD to have an opinion. It is up to himself which recommendation he listens to, he has his own brain.

He didn't ask for recommendations. He wanted people to back him up that a single table without any relations is a database. For the examples he gave it isn't. Do you disagree? I gave a very simple solution for his examples to demonstrate why his examples do not constitute a database.

Your recommendation is wrong. He and anybody else gets no experience from querying such tables. It would be better for learning experience to get SQL for something like AdventureWorks or Northwind. People have converted the SQL from SQL Server to other platforms. That is better from a learning point of view.

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And the forum dunce posts again. Ever heard of SQLite? It's used widely for that exact reason. Its a massive performance increase over querying on a text file. League of Legends, one of the largest platforms in the world, uses sqlite without any relationship for champions, icons, items, etc.

Glad your experience helps so much! I think you said 12 years experience 2 years ago, your experience is bullshit if its even real.

I mentioned specifically the examples used by the OP. But don't let that get in the way of your rant. Or maybe you think those examples constitute a database!

The biggest problem with your rant is your recommendation for SQLite as if that was anything better than using a byte-index on a text file for those examples he gave. It isn't. SQLite has its uses but why would you use (or need) SQL for the use cases the OP posted? What's even worse is that for those examples you can serialise to disk as JSON or YAML and process that way. But then your lack of experience shows in the solution you posted. If the only tool you have is a hammer then I suppose that's why everything looks like a nail.

I thought you had me on ignore. Maybe you removed me that's why you know I call you the forum's resident jester.

As for your claim about my experience and what I claimed two years ago. It's easy enough to check just go to my post history and hit the 9th page. That's 2 or so years ago. Find the evidence that I claimed 12 years DBA experience 2 years ago.