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Tue 17 Oct 2006
Luca & PostgreSQL - It Works
Category : Technology/LucaPostgreSQLWorks.txt
And I'm stunned :-) This is Luca pulling data from a PostgreSQL 8.1.4 (on i686-apple-darwin8.7.1) database : Of course, I've still got a lot of testing to do. But so far, all the reports - like Chart of Accounts, Trial Balance, etc - work. And I can update, modify and delete data. Even the blob data type, which I used to store CurrencyFormatter objects, works (though it's called a bytea field in Postgres). In the larger scheme of things, this is significant. Blob fields can be used to store any media types - pictures, sound files, documents, etc. So I now have the means to move these data types across any of the three SQL databases - SQLite, PostgreSQL, and MySQL - that are free and popularly used. PostgreSQL is a "buzzword-compliant" database system - ACID, views, triggers, stored procedures, transaction locking, concurrency control, etc. I'm like a kid in a toy store. Or a more apt metaphor, like a Samurai who's just found the Master's sword. If you've ever worked on Oracle in a corporate environment, where you have to beg a database administrator to condescend to give you access your own data, you'll know how liberating it is to have this kind of tool, this kind of power, available on tap, and so easily wielded. Forgive me while I go into hyperbole. This is the Mac in all its protean majesty. Some people use it to listen to music, organise photos, make movies. Others will wield it like the Universal Turing Machine to simulate all other machines imaginable - cash registers, accounts ledgers, etc. The database, in making it possible to make intentional and retrievable associations between pieces of data - is the bridge that carries us from data to information to knowledge and, hopefully, to wisdom. Suddenly, the two thousand odd dollars we paid to lug this little white beauty of a machine around? Isn't it such a bargain?
Posted at 12:07PM UTC | permalink
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