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• From: Damian Morris <damian@moso.com.au>
• To: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
• Date: Fri, 2 Sep 2022 02:02:13 +0000

The Unix world also dealt with vastly less complex eco-systems, where relatively simple single-purpose components could be designed independently of each other and then effectively strung together in arbitrary pipelines that were far more sophisticated in the aggregate. Michael’s example of how this approach could not be used efficiently or effectively used to implement a much more sophisticated component such as a modern database is just one such example.

A lot of these principles are timeless at an abstract level, but when abstractions meet implementation they invariably benefit from - and, frankly, need to be - considered in their context.

Cheers,

Damian



> On 2 Sep 2022, at 3:51 am, Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> I respectfully disagree. From the reading that I have done on the early days of UNIX, some very smart people developed some really good coding principles. From my perspective, those principles are timeless. For instance, does anyone disagree with this principle that they developed 50+ years ago: "A program should be viewed as just a stage in a larger process. Stages should be simple and easy to connect." 
>> 
>> In my opinion, an idea should be based on its merit, not its age.
>> 
> 
> Database technology, centred on the capabilities of large direct-access disks, emerged at about the same time as UNIX, and the initial design of UNIX failed to take account of it (the filestore permissions model, for example, is totally unsuited to database-centric applications). The UNIX concept of pipelines is a great way of organising batch jobs, but it really doesn't fit into the world of database-driven transaction processing, which is a completely different, and equally valid, paradigm.
> 
> Michael Kay
> Saxonica 
> 
> 
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• References:
  • What is the “standard form” of data?
    • From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
  • =?utf-8?B?UmU6IFt4bWwtZGV2XSBXaGF0IGlzIHRoZSDigJxzdGFuZGFyZCBmb3Jt4oCd?==?utf-8?Q?_of_data=3F?=
    • From: Roger L Costello <costello@mitre.org>
  • =?utf-8?B?UmU6IFt4bWwtZGV2XSBXaGF0IGlzIHRoZSDigJxzdGFuZGFyZCBm?==?utf-8?B?b3Jt4oCdIG9mIGRhdGE/?=
    • From: Michael Kay <mike@saxonica.com>